remark.js and LinuxCon

In about 2 weeks I’ll be presenting at LinuxCon about documentation, community, and not being a jerk. The presentation is titled Read the Fine Manual? Write a better fine manual.

For the last couple of years, I’ve been using reveal.js for my conference presentations. I’ve been getting progressively more frustrated with it, because, while it allows me to write content using MarkDown, it greatly limits what functionality I have access to when using MarkDown. That is, it has lots of cool features, but many of them are only available if you actually want to write your presentation in HTML, with javascript calls in it. I really don’t want to.

So, for LinuxCon, I’ll be trying out remark.js instead. It’s not very different, but it gives access to more style and transition stuff directly in the markdown. And, best of all, since it’s just Markdown, I didn’t have to rewrite any of my content to use it – just use a different wrapper to display the rendered slides.

You can preview my slides HERE. You’ll see they’re nothing fancy, but they do the job. Mostly I use slides for two things – cue cards for myself, so I remember what to say, and a few clever images so that I can keep the attention of the audience for a minute or two before moving on to the next slide.