Spectacle

ReactJS based Presentation Library

Spectacle Boilerplate MDX Spectacle Boilerplate

Looking for a quick preview of what you can do with Spectacle? Check out our live Demo Deck here.

Have a question about Spectacle? Submit an issue in this repository using the "Question" template.

Contents

• Getting Started
  • Classic Spectacle
  • Spectacle MDX
  • One Page
• Development
• Build & Deployment
• Presenting
• Controls
• Fullscreen
• PDF Export
• Basic Concepts
  • Main file
  • Themes
    • createTheme(colors, fonts)
• FAQ
• Tag API
  • Main Tags
    • Deck
    • Slide (Base)
    • Notes
    • MarkdownSlides
  • Layout Tags
    • Layout
    • Fit
    • Fill
  • Markdown Tag
    • Markdown
  • Magic Tag
    • Magic
  • Element Tags
    • Appear
    • Anim
    • BlockQuote, Quote and Cite (Base)
    • CodePane (Base)
    • Code (Base)
    • ComponentPlayground
    • GoToAction (Base)
    • Heading (Base)
    • Image (Base)
    • Link (Base)
    • List & ListItem (Base)
    • S (Base)
    • Table, TableRow, TableBody, TableHeader, TableHeaderItem and TableItem (Base)
    • Text (Base)
    • Typeface
  • Base Props
• Third Party Extensions

Getting Started

First, decide whether you want to use classic Spectacle, Spectacle MDX, which has all the same functionality but allows you to write your Spectacle presentation in markdown, or using only one HTML page.

Classic Spectacle

There are four ways to get started building your presentation.

1. Option #1: Run the following command in your terminal:

   npx create-react-app my-presentation --scripts-version spectacle-scripts

2. Option #2: Using the Spectacle Boilerplate.

3. Option #3: Following along the Spectacle Tutorial, which also involves downloading the Spectacle Boilerplate.

All three of the above ways will give you everything you'll need to get started, including a sample presentation in the presentation folder. You can change the props and tags as needed for your presentation or delete everything in presentation/index.js to start from scratch. From here you can go to Development to get started.

3. Option #4: Run npm install spectacle in your terminal and writing your own build configurations. We also provide full UMD builds (with a Spectacle global variable) of the library at dist/spectacle.js and dist/spectacle.min.js for more general use cases. You could, for example, include the library via a script tag with: https://unpkg.com/spectacle@VERSION/dist/spectacle.min.js.

Spectacle MDX

Download the Spectacle MDX Boilerplate.

This repository will give you everything you'll need to get started, including a sample presentation in the presentation folder. You can change the props and tags as needed for your presentation or delete everything in the index.mdx file to start from scratch. From here you can go to Development to get started.

NOTE: We have webpack externals for react, react-dom, and prop-types, so you will need to provide them in your upstream build or something like linking in via script tags in your HTML page for all three libraries. This comports with our project dependencies which place these three libraries in peerDependencies.

One Page

To aid with speedy development we've provided a simple boilerplate HTML page with a bespoke script tag that contains your entire presentation. The rest of the setup will take care of transpiling your React/ESnext code, providing Spectacle, React, and ReactDOM libraries, and being raring to go with a minimum of effort.

We can start with this project's sample at one-page.html. It's the same presentation as the fully-built-from-source version, with a few notable exceptions:

1. There are no imports or requires. Everything must come from the global namespace. This includes Spectacle, React, ReactDOM and all the Spectacle exports from ./src/index.js -- Deck, Slide, themes, etc.

2. The presentation must include exactly one script tag with the type text/spectacle that is a function. Presently, that function is directly inserted inline into a wrapper code boilerplate as a React Component render function. The wrapper is transpiled. There should not be any extraneous content around it like outer variables or comments.

   Good examples:

   <script type="text/spectacle">   () => (     <Deck>{/* SLIDES */}</Deck>   ) </script>

   <script type="text/spectacle">   () => {     // Code-y code stuff in JS...      return (       <Deck>{/* SLIDES */}</Deck>     );   } </script>

   Bad examples of what not to do:

   <script type="text/spectacle">   // Outer comment (BAD)   const outerVariable = "BAD";    () => (     <Deck>{/* SLIDES */}</Deck>   ) </script>

3. If you want to create your own theme settings, you can use the following code snippet to change the themes default settings.

   <script type="text/spectacle">   () => {     const { themes: { defaultTheme } } = Spectacle;     const theme = defaultTheme({       // Change default settings       primary: "blue",       secondary: "red"     },     {       primary: "Helvetica",     });      return (       <Deck transition={['zoom']} theme={theme}>         <Slide>some stuff</Slide>         <Slide>other stuff</Slide>         <Slide>some more stuff</Slide>       </Deck>     );   } </script>

... with those guidelines in mind, here's the boilerplate that you can copy-and-paste into an HTML file and start a Spectacle presentation that works from the get go!

<!DOCTYPE html> <html lang="en">   <head>     <meta charset="UTF-8" />     <meta       name="viewport"       content="width=device-width initial-scale=1 user-scalable=no"     />     <title>Spectacle</title>     <link       href="https://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Lobster+Two:400,700"       rel="stylesheet"       type="text/css"     />     <link       href="https://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Open+Sans+Condensed:300,700"       rel="stylesheet"       type="text/css"     />     <link       href="https://unpkg.com/normalize.css@7/normalize.css"       rel="stylesheet"       type="text/css"     />   </head>   <body>     <div id="root"></div>     <script src="https://unpkg.com/prop-types@15/prop-types.js"></script>     <script src="https://unpkg.com/react@16/umd/react.production.min.js"></script>     <script src="https://unpkg.com/react-dom@16/umd/react-dom.production.min.js"></script>     <script src="https://unpkg.com/@babel/standalone/babel.js"></script>     <script src="https://unpkg.com/spectacle@^5/dist/spectacle.js"></script>     <script src="https://unpkg.com/spectacle@^5/lib/one-page.js"></script>     <script type="text/spectacle">       () => {         // Your JS Code goes here          return (           <Deck>           {/* Throw in some slides here! */}           </Deck>         );       }     </script>   </body> </html>

Development

After downloading the boilerplate, run the following commands on the project's root directory...

• npm install (you can also use yarn)
• rm -R .git to remove the existing version control
• npm start to start up the local server or visit http://localhost:3000/#/

... and we are ready to roll

Build & Deployment

Building the dist version of the slides is as easy as running npm run build:dist

If you want to deploy the slideshow to surge, run npm run deploy

⚠️ WARNING: If you are deploying the dist version to GitHub Pages, note that the built bundle uses an absolute path to the /dist/ directory while GitHub Pages requires the relative ./dist/ to find any embedded assets and/or images. A very hacky way to fix this is to edit one place in the produced bundle, as shown in this GitHub issue.

Presenting

Spectacle comes with a built in presenter mode. It shows you a slide lookahead, current time and your current slide:

You also have the option of a stopwatch to count the elapsed time:

To present:

• Run npm start. You will be redirected to a URL containing your presentation or visit http://localhost:3000/#/
• Open a second browser window on a different screen
• Add ?presenter or ?presenter&timer immediately after the /, e.g.: http://localhost:3000/#/0?presenter or http://localhost:3000/#/?presenter&timer
• Give an amazingly stylish presentation

NOTE: Any windows/tabs in the same browser that are running Spectacle will sync to one another, even if you don't want to use presentation mode

Check it out:

You can toggle the presenter or overview mode by pressing respectively alt+p and alt+o.

Controls

Fullscreen

Fullscreen can be toggled via browser options, Alt/Option + F, or by pressing the button in the bottom right corner of your window.

Note: Right now, this works well when browser window itself is not full screen. When the browser is in fullscreen, there is an issue #654. This is because we use the browser's FullScreen API methods. It still works but has some inconstiency.

PDF Export

You can export a PDF from your Spectacle presentation either from the command line or browser:

CLI

• Run npm install spectacle-renderer -g
• Run npm start on your project and wait for it to build and be available
• Run spectacle-renderer

A PDF is created in your project directory. For more options and configuration of this tool, check out:

https://github.com/FormidableLabs/spectacle-renderer

Browser

After running npm start and opening http://localhost:3000/#/ in your browser...

• Add ?export after the / on the URL of the page you are redirected to, e.g.: http://localhost:3000/#/?export
• Bring up the print dialog (ctrl or cmd + p)
• Change destination to "Save as PDF", as shown below:

If you want a printer friendly version, repeat the above process but instead print from http://localhost:3000/#/?export&print.

If you want to export your slides with your notes included, repeat the above process but instead print from http://localhost:3000/#/?export&notes.

Query Parameters

Here is a list of all valid query parameters that can be placed after /#/ on the URL.

NOTE: If you add a non-valid query parameter, you will be taken to a blank page. Removing or replacing the query parameter with a valid query parameter and refreshing the page will return you to the correct destination.

Basic Concepts

Main file

Your presentation files & assets will live in the presentation folder.

The main .js file you write your deck in is /presentation/index.js

Check it out here in the boilerplate.

// index.js  import React, { Component } from 'react'; import {   Appear,   BlockQuote,   Cite,   CodePane,   Code,   Deck,   Fill,   Fit,   Heading,   Image,   Layout,   ListItem,   List,   Quote,   Slide,   Text } from 'spectacle';  export default class extends Component {   render() {     return (       <Deck>         <Slide>           <Text>Hello</Text>         </Slide>       </Deck>     );   } }

Here is where you can use the library's tags to compose your presentation. While you can use any JSX syntax here, building your presentation with the supplied tags allows for theming to work properly.

The bare minimum you need to start is a Deck element and a Slide element. Each Slide element represents a slide inside of your slideshow.

Themes

In Spectacle, themes are functions that return style objects for screen & print.

You can import the default theme from:

import createTheme from 'spectacle/lib/themes/default';

Or create your own based upon the source.

index.js is what you would edit in order to create a custom theme of your own, using object based styles.

You will want to edit index.html to include any web fonts or additional CSS that your theme requires.

createTheme(colors, fonts)

Spectacle's functional theme system allows you to pass in color and font variables that you can use on your elements. The fonts configuration object can take a string for a system font or an object that specifies it‘s a Google Font. If you use a Google Font you can provide a styles array for loading different weights and variations. Google Font tags will be automatically created. See the example below:

const theme = createTheme(   {     primary: 'red',     secondary: 'blue'   },   {     primary: 'Helvetica',     secondary: {       name: 'Droid Serif',       googleFont: true,       styles: ['400', '700i']     }   } );

The returned theme object can then be passed to the Deck tag via the theme prop, and will override the default styles.

FAQ

How can I easily style the base components for my presentation?

Historically, custom styling in Spectacle has meant screwing with a theme file, or using !important overrides. We fixed that. Spectacle is now driven by emotion, so you can bring your own styling library, whether it's emotion itself, or something like styled-components or glamorous. For example, if you want to create a custom Heading style:

import styled from 'react-emotion'; import { Heading } from 'spectacle';  const CustomHeading = styled(Heading)`   font-size: 1.2em;   color: papayawhip; `;

Can I write my presentation in TypeScript?

Yes, you can! Type definitions are shipped with the library, so you can import Spectacle components into any .tsx presentation without additional installation steps.

Updated type definitions for the Spectacle API can be found at the root of this repository.

Tag API

In Spectacle, presentations are composed of a set of base tags. We can separate these into three categories: Main tags, Layout tags & Element tags.

Main Tags

Deck

The Deck tag is the root level tag for your presentation. It supports the following props:

Slide (Base)

The slide tag represents each slide in the presentation. Giving a slide tag an id attribute will replace its number based navigation hash with the id provided. It supports the following props, in addition to any of the props outlined in the Base class props listing:

SlideSet

With SlideSet, you can wrap multiple slide in it to apply the same style.

<SlideSet style={{ border: '2px solid red' }}>   <Slide>Slide1</Slide>   <Slide>Slide2</Slide>   <Slide>Slide3</Slide> </SlideSet>

Transition Function

Spectacle now supports defining custom transitions. The function prototype is (transitioning: boolean, forward: boolean) => Object. The transitioning param is true when the slide enters and exits. The forward param is true when the slide is entering, false when the slide is exiting. The function returns a style object. You can mix string-based transitions and functions. Styles provided when transitioning is false will appear during the lifecyle of the slide. An example is shown below:

<Slide   transition={[     'fade',     (transitioning, forward) => {       const angle = forward ? -180 : 180;       return {         transform: `           translate3d(0%, ${transitioning ? 100 : 0}%, 0)           rotate(${transitioning ? angle : 0}deg)         `,         backgroundColor: transitioning ? '#26afff' : '#000'       };     }   ]} >

Notes

The notes tag allows to use any tree of react elements as the notes of a slide. It is used as a child node of a slide tag and its children override any value given as the notes attribute of its parent slide.

<Slide ...>   <Notes>     <h4>Slide notes</h4>     <ol>       <li>First note</li>       <li>Second note</li>     </ol>   </Notes>   {/* Slide content */} </Slide>

MarkdownSlides

The MarkdownSlides function lets you create a single or multiple slides using Markdown. It can be used as a tagged template literal or a function. Three dashes (--- are used as a delimiter between slides.

Tagged Template Literal Usage

<Deck ...>   {MarkdownSlides` ## Slide One Title Slide Content --- ## Slide Two Title Slide Content   `} </Deck>

Function Usage

const slidesMarkdown = ` ## Slide One Title Slide Content --- ## Slide Two Title Slide Content   `;    .... import slidesMarkdown from "!raw-loader!markdown.md";  <Deck ...>   {MarkdownSlides(slidesMarkdown)} </Deck>

Layout Tags

Layout tags are used for layout using Flexbox within your slide. They are Layout, Fit & Fill.

Layout

The layout tag is used to wrap Fit and Fill tags to provide a row.

Fit

The fit tag only takes up as much space as its bounds provide.

Fill

The fill tag takes up all the space available to it. For example, if you have a Fill tag next to a Fit tag, the Fill tag will take up the rest of the space. Adjacent Fill tags split the difference and form an equidistant grid.

Markdown Tag

Markdown (Base)

The Markdown tag is used to add inline markdown to your slide. You can provide markdown source via the source prop, or as children. You can also provide a custom mdast configuration via the mdastConfig prop.

Markdown generated tags aren't prop configurable, and instead render with your theme defaults.

Magic Tag

Magic

NOTE: The Magic tag uses the Web Animations API. If you use the Magic tag and want it to work places other than Chrome, you will need to include the polyfill https://github.com/web-animations/web-animations-js

The Magic Tag recreates Magic Move behavior that slide authors might be accustomed to coming from Keynote. It wraps slides and transitions between positional values for child elements. This means that if you have two similar strings, we will transition common characters to their new positions. This does not transition on non positional values such as slide background color or font size.

⚠️ WARNING: Do not use a transition prop on your slides if you are wrapping them with a Magic tag since it will take care of the transition for you.

<Magic>   <Slide>     <Heading>First Heading</Heading>   </Slide>   <Slide>     <Heading>Second Heading</Heading>   </Slide> </Magic>

Transitioning between similar states will vary based upon the input content. It will look better when there are more common elements. An upcoming patch will allow for custom keys, which will provide greater control over which elements are identified as common for reuse.

Until then, feedback is very welcome, as this is a non-trivial feature and we anticipate iterating on the behind the scenes mechanics of how it works, so that we can accommodate most use cases.

Element Tags

The element tags are the bread and butter of your slide content. Most of these tags derive their props from the Base class, but the ones that have special options will have them listed:

Appear

This tag does not extend from Base. It's special. Wrapping elements in the appear tag makes them appear/disappear in order in response to navigation.

For best performance, wrap the contents of this tag in a native DOM element like a <div> or <span>.

NOTE: When using CodePane tag inside an Appear tag you must wrap it inside a <div>

.... <Appear>   <div>     <CodePane source="CodePane" lang="js" />   </div> <Appear> ....

Anim

If you want extra flexibility with animated animation, you can use the Anim component instead of Appear. It will let you have multi-step animations for each individual fragment. You can use this to create fancy animated intros, in-slide carousels, and many other fancy things. This tag does not extend from Base. It's special.

For best performance, wrap the contents of this tag in a native DOM element like a <div> or <span>.

NOTE: CodePane tag can not be used inside a Anim tag.

BlockQuote, Quote and Cite (Base)

These tags create a styled blockquote. Use them as follows:

<BlockQuote>   <Quote>Ken Wheeler is amazing</Quote>   <Cite>Everyone</Cite> </BlockQuote>

NOTE: By default the text color of the Quote tag is the same as the background color and may not show up. Use the bgColor and/or textColor props on the Slide or Quote tags to make it visible.

<Slide transition={['fade']} bgColor="secondary" textColor="primary">   <BlockQuote>     <Quote>Example Quote</Quote>     <Cite>Author</Cite>   </BlockQuote> </Slide>

<Slide transition={['fade']}>   <BlockQuote>     <Quote textColor="secondary">Example Quote</Quote>     <Cite>Author</Cite>   </BlockQuote> </Slide>

CodePane (Base)

This tag displays a styled, highlighted code preview. I prefer putting my code samples in external .example files and requiring them using raw-loader as shown in the demo. Here are the props:

If you want to change the theme used here, you can include a prism theme in index.html via a style or a link tag. For your theme to be actually applied correctly you need to set the theme prop to "external", which disables our builtin light and dark themes. Please note that including a theme can actually influence all CodePane and Playground components, even if you don't set this prop, since some Prism themes use very generic CSS selectors.

CodePane and Playground both use the prism library under the hood, which has several themes that are available to include.

Code (Base)

A simple tag for wrapping inline text that you want lightly styled in a monospace font.

Component Playground

This tag displays a two-pane view with a ES6 source code editor on the right and a preview pane on the left for showing off custom React components. React and render are supplied as variables. To render a component call render with some JSX code. Any console output will be forwarded to the main console in the browser.

For more information on the playground read the docs over at react-live.

Example code blocks:

const Button = ({ title }) => <button type="button">{title}</button>; render(<Button title="My Button" />);

class View extends React.Component {   componentDidMount() {     console.log('Hello');   }    render() {     return <div>My View</div>;   } } render(<View />);

If you want to change the theme used here, please refer to the instructions above in the CodePane's API reference.

Go To Action (Base)

The GoToAction tag lets you jump to another slide in your deck. The GoToAction can be used a simple button that supports Base styling or accept a render prop with a callback to support custom components.

Simple Button Configuration Example

<GoToAction slide={3}>Jump to 3</GoToAction>

Custom Component Configuration Example

<GoToAction   render={goToSlide => (     <CustomComponent onClick={() => goToSlide('wait-wut')}>       WAIT WUT!?     </CustomComponent>   )} />

Heading (Base)

Heading tags are special in that, when you specify a size prop, they generate the appropriate heading tag, and extend themselves with a style that is defined in the theme file for that heading. Line height can be adjusted via a numeric lineHeight prop.

Image (Base)

Link (Base)

The link tag is used to render <a> tags. It accepts an href prop:

List & ListItem (Base)

These tags create lists. Use them as follows:

Ordered lists:

<List ordered start={2} type="A">   <ListItem>Item 1</ListItem>   <ListItem>Item 2</ListItem>   <ListItem>Item 3</ListItem>   <ListItem>Item 4</ListItem> </List>

Unordered lists:

<List>   <ListItem>Item 1</ListItem>   <ListItem bulletStyle="arrow">Item 2</ListItem>   <ListItem>Item 3</ListItem>   <ListItem>Item 4</ListItem> </List>

S (Base)

The S tag is used to add styling to a piece of text, such as underline or strikethrough.

Table, TableRow, TableHeaderItem and TableItem (Base)

The Table tag is used to add table to your slide. It is used with TableHeader, TableBody, TableRow, TableHeaderItem and TableItem. Use them as follows:

<Table>   <TableHeader>     <TableRow>       <TableHeaderItem />       <TableHeaderItem>2011</TableHeaderItem>     </TableRow>   </TableHeader>   <TableBody>     <TableRow>       <TableItem>None</TableItem>       <TableItem>61.8%</TableItem>     </TableRow>     <TableRow>       <TableItem>jQuery</TableItem>       <TableItem>28.3%</TableItem>     </TableRow>   </TableBody> </Table>

Text (Base)

The Text tag is used to add text to your slide. Line height can be adjusted via a numeric lineHeight prop.

Base Props

Every component above that has (Base) after it has been extended from a common class that includes the following props:

NOTE: When using bgImage prop for local images, you must import the file for it to render properly.

import myImage from './images/my-image.jpg';  ......  <Slide bgImage={myImage}>   I have an image for a background </Slide>

Typeface

The Typeface tag is used to apply a specific font to text content. It can either use a font that exists on the system or load a font from the Google Fonts library. Typeface requires either font or googleFont to be defined.

<Typeface googleFont="Roboto Slab" weight={600}>   <Text>This text is using bold Roboto Slab from Google Fonts.</Text> </Typeface>

<Typeface font="SF Text" weight={400} italic={true}>   <Text>This text is using the San Francisco Text font from the system.</Text> </Typeface>

Third Party Extensions

• Spectacle Code Slide - Step through lines of code using this awesome slide extension by @thejameskyle
• Spectacle Terminal Slide - Terminal component that can be used in a spectacle slide deck by @elijahmanor
• Spectacle Image Slide - Show a slide with a big image and a title on top

Maintenance Status

Active: Formidable is actively working on this project, and we expect to continue for work for the foreseeable future. Bug reports, feature requests and pull requests are welcome.