[jlgreco]

My fear with this is that it will be less "bullet proof" than creating a PDF slidedeck. With this I'll have to worry about getting the fontsize correct on the projector, which means I have to worry about getting a terminal set up on whichever computer I may be using for a presentation (hopefully my own, but I can't count on that) and (in the case that it isn't my own) I have to worry about networking too.

With a PDF slidedeck I can have the PDF on my computer, on the network, and on a flashdrive, I don't have to worry about presentation software compatibility or installing Gvim+plugins or putty, I don't have to worry about font-size, etc.

If I could be absolutely sure that the presentation was going to be given from my computer, then I think this would be great.

[tybenz]

To be honest, when I made Vimdeck, it was mostly just-for-fun. I never really expected that other people would seriously consider using it for their presentations.

Now that I've seen how many people are interested in it, though, I might spend some time adding more features to it to make it a more viable option.

As you pointed out, there's not a great way to take this format and use it on someone else's machine.

First, I'd like to point out that all Vimdeck is doing is generating files into a directory and opening them with VIM. There are a few VIM plugins as dependencies. Like markdown syntax highlighting, and SyntaxRange, but it's entirely possible that I could allow the users to bundle their presentation as a zip file, put it on a flash drive and open it on any other computer (most have VIM already installed).

There's no Gvim necessary. Just a couple of plugins and the dynamically generated VIM script. Seems plausible to be able to bundle all that into a machine-agnostic format. VIM already runs everywhere.

And as far as the font size goes, you're right. There's no way around it. You're going to have to increase/decrease the font size immediately before the presentation to get it just right. But there's often a chance for speakers to test that their slides work in the current environment any ways.

I'm not saying text-only ASCII-art-ridden presentations are the best way to present information. But depending on the crowd and the speaker, it might be worth it.