#224 Simple Presentation Mode

[Sven Köhler]

Currently, Xournal only has a fullscreen mode. This is not really suitable for presentations. For example, pressing F11 doesn't switch to "single page" mode, i.e., one may scroll through the pages and see half of one page and half of the other. Also, the page is not zoomed to the right degree. Pressing F11 keeps whatever the zoom level that is set in the main window.

I thus would like to request a presentation mode (e.g., by pressing F5, like in atril/evince).
Pressing F5 would switch to fullscreen, make the toolbars disappear, display only a single page at a time, and zoom the current page to stretch to the full height or width (whatever is smaller) of the screen.

Please consider adding this. Xournal seems to be about the only tool that properly supports annotating PDF files in fullscreen/presentation mode. It is ideal for giving presentations of PDF files.

[Denis Auroux]

Hi Sven,

The problem with making the toolbars disappear is that you can't really
do very much annotating (if you can't change pen colors or the like), so
when I give a presentation in xournal I normally want the toolbars there
-- hence fullscreen mode.

The zoom can then be set using the zoom toolbar button to match page
width or height as needed, and if you use View -> One Page then you
won't see more than one page at a time.

So... should F5 / "presentation mode" be just a shortcut for fullscreen
+ set zoom + one page mode ?

Or do you really think the toolbars should be removed in this mode, even
if it means the only way to bring them back and change tools is to
switch out of presentation mode? (Right now GTK2 doesn't have good
support for auto-hiding toolbars, and those don't work well on
touchscreens anyway, so I don't think we can go that way).

Perhaps another feature request about "one page" mode should be to allow
left/right arrows to switch between pages if the whole page width is
visible on screen ? (right now it's up/down arrows or pageup/pagedown or
control-left/right, but USB clickers may be hardcoded to send
left-right? don't know for sure, I don't have one).

Denis

[Sven Köhler]

I agree that I wouldn't be able to change color directly.I would have to exit presentation mode and then enter it again. But IMHO the maximum screen area should be available for the slide. For changing color and for switching to other tools, one could use rightclick, or one could have invisible (most of the time) buttons at the bottom left of the screen. Or the toolbar would hide at the top edge of the screen and actually appear only if the cursor is near the top edge. Many things could be implemented that are IMHO better alternatives to having the toolbars visible at all times. But that would be another feature request.
One of the youtube videos on giving presentations with Xournal actually explains how to remove the toolbars in fullscreen mode. So I'm not alone with that opinion.

You are correct, that without the toolbars I am not able to do much - in particular a "fit page to screen" zoom. The Ctrl+= shortcut calculates the zoom level based on the width only - which is a bad idea especially for presentation, when 4:3 slides are presented on a 16:10 projector. The zoom level for presentation mode should be min(screen width / page width, screen height / page height).
BTW: the Ctrl+= shortcut doesn't work on Windows (I have a german keyboard, so I have to press Ctrl+Shift+0 since = is equal to Shift+0 and I think GTK might have some trouble with that). Anyhow, to have a "fit to screen" zoom, one still has to do 3 clicks (zoom button, select width or height depending on screen/slide format, click OK). Also, I has to remember to select one page mode. A single press of F5 is just so much simpler and so much less error prone.

Our administrators provide us with a PDF viewer where switching colors or pen thickness is really complicated. An erasor always deletes complete lines, any lines that are drawn are "smoothed out", often rendering letters unreadable.
So from my perspective, using Xournal would be a HUGE improvement.

So I'm pretty much asking for F5 being a shortcut for fullscreen + set zoom + one page mode.
I can remove the toolbars from fullscreen mode via the config file.

Some people may prefer that presentation mode is different from fullscreen mode.
(Toolbars stay when pressing F11 but disappear when pressing F5). That could be an enhancement at some later point.