v0.1 roadmap

[yxonic]

About VSlides

Motivation

• Tech/academia slides usually focus more on the content instead of visual effects.
• Writing/maintaining/sharing contents of slides can be painful.
• Consistency of design such as color, alignment, is harder to maintain with WYSIWYG softwares (like Word vs LaTeX, see this maybe).
• Review LaTeX beamer:
  • Content as source code approach, with enough features.
  • It is easy to auto generate table-of-contents, references etc., with the help of LaTeX.
  • The language is obsolete.
  • The syntax is noisy.
  • It is extremely difficult to write a custom theme. Even making small modifications to existing theme is difficult.
• Similar idea but with modern technologies: Markdown for content writing, and HTML/CSS for design.
• Review slidev:
  • A solid proof-of-concept for web-based slide software. Markdown for writing contents, and HTML/CSS/Vue for logic/design.
  • Feature-full. Most critical and fancy functionalities that can be implemented are implemented.
  • Missing features:
    • Auto TOC generation.
    • Multiple slides hosting.
    • Client-side rendering.
  • Some design choices that I disagree with:
    • Modularization: the software is not well modularized. Extending features or supporting more use cases is difficult, even painful at times. Also, the overall software tends to be more buggy.
    • Configuration: too many places being configurable for an end product.
    • Theming: it is difficult to create a high-quality theme for slidev, due to the complexity and inconsistencies in slidev's layout and styling systems.
• VSlides vision:
  • ...

Philosophy

Comparison

v0.1 objectives

Functionality

• Support comparable functionalities than PPT/Keynote/beamer/slidev.
• Support more use cases.
  • Standalone CLI, for writing and presentation.
  • As a vite plugin, for hosting and viewing one or more slides (e.g. sharing lecture slides).
  • In-browser, for online editing experience (e.g. to support feature preview, quick edit and export, hosting service).
• Users should make fewer decisions when using vslides.
  • Works out-of-the-box. All functionalities are self-contained. No plugins. Less configuration.
  • Only the best, most-obvious tools are included and supported. E.g. unocss for CSS utilities, shiki for code highlighting.

Syntax

• Stick to markdown syntax as much as possible, to avoid cluttering the main content.
  • At most cases, users should not have the necessity to fallback to HTML tags.
  • Insert images with sensible defaults to avoid custom <img>s.
  • Centered/flex/grid layout with markdown blocks to avoid custom <div>s.
• Extended syntax should feel similar and easy-to-use.
  • Reduce the use of non-standard markdown grammar.
  • Use HTML comments for vslides instructions?
  • Try to be formatter-friendly. (Or implement a custom highlighter/formatter?)

Design

• Slides should be neat and clear only with default style (feat: vslides base style #3).
• Enforce an intuitive, clean and subtle UI design.
• Provide a pleasant and empowered experience for theme designers.

Product

• Logo and short description.
• Global and package READMEs.
• Website and demo.

Development

• Audit dependencies frequently. Reduce unnecessary overhead.
  • E.g. remove vue-router? Or vueuse?
• Keep high maintainability.
  • Clear data/state management. E.g. use pinia to manage global states?
• Grow as a serious open source project that fits the community.