A simple tool for generating self-contained HTML slide shows from Markdown.

A presentation is contained in a single file. The beginning of each slide is denoted by a sequence of at least three dashes at the start of the line. This is reffered to as the slide start line.

Beneath the slide start line is markdown text defining the content of the slide.

The slide start line can contain optional parameters, following the initial sequence of dashes, separated from it by whitespace. Individual parameters are also separated by whitespace.

There are three types of parameters: layout parameters, class parameters, and id parameters.

A layout parameter specifies the name of the template to use to layout the slide. There will typically only be one of these per slide, but you can provide additional parameters to specify fallback layouts, in case the specified layout is not found. In this case, layouts are applied from first to last (left to right) until one is found. Layout parameters are specified literally, without any indicator.

A class parameter specifies a CSS class to apply to the slide. These parameters are always prefixed with a '.' character.

An id parameter specifies an ID that will be applied to the slide, for referenceing in hyperlinks. These paramters are always prefixed with a '#' character.

A slide can be divided into a sequence of fragments, with fragments separated by a line containing at least three dots at the start of the line. Fragments are loaded sequentially as you progress through the slide.

Sldier differentiates between semantic elements and presentation elements. Semantic elements are specified in a YAML format immediately following the slide start line. These elements can be used to specify things like the slide-title and author, which are made available to the template which renders the slide.

Markdown (or HTML) elements, including titles, are considered presentation elements, and are not treated in any special way: they are simply rendered as part of the body of the slide.

Individual slides can have a layout and any number of styles specified.

A layout is the name of a template file which controls how the slide is laid out. We typically have layouts like "page", "title", "untitled", "blank", "fullpage", etc.

A style is a CSS class which will be applied to the slide and controls its visual appearance (and potentially it's layout, as well). We might have styles like "neat", "futuristic", "carnival", "professional", "1997", etc.

A theme is just a directory with layout templates and CSS style sheets. For a cohesive look, the theme is specified at the top-level and applies to the whole deck.

Any time a resource (such as a layout template or a stylesheet) is needed, we search at specified locations under each directory in the resource search path. By default, the search path is a directory named res in the current directory. Anytime you specify a theme for a deck, files defined in that theme will take precedence over files found elsewhere.

Each type of resource has a specific subdirectory where it is expected to be found. For instance, witht he default search path of simply [./res], layout templates are searched for in ./res/templates, and stylesheets in ./res/style.

Themes are also searched for under the resource search path, under the themes subdirectory. For instance, if the search path is equal to [./res, ./other-res], and the theme has been specified as "roswell", then we will look for layout templates in the following locations, in order: ./res/themes/roswell/templates, ./other-res/themes/roswell/templates, ./res/templates, ./other-res/templates.