Editor Setup

Slipshow can be integrated into your editor for a better experience when preparing your presentation.

This integration helps in several ways:

  • It helps you write a valid input file, by:

    • displaying errors directly in your editor,

    • offering autocompletion when applicable,

    • showing documentation for actions on hover,

    • jumping to definition of identifiers

  • It also allows you to see a preview of your presentation, updated in real time as you type.

  • It compiles your presentation on save.

This integration is still in its early days. It is going to be improved and extended with new releases of slipshow.

Emacs

You need two modes to develop slipshow presentations comfortably in emacs:

  • markdown-mode, a major mode for editing markdown document with syntax highlighting, and other facilities.

  • eglot, a generic LSP client (part of emacs, so nothing to install) for the rest of the integration.

After opening your input .md file, type M-x eglot to start eglot, which will prompt you the command to start the lsp server. At this point, type slipshow lsp (you need slipshow to be installed of course).

The command above sets you for editor features such as errors, documentation on hover, etc, but it also starts a preview server, usually accessible by opening a browser and going to localhost:8080. However, if the port 8080 is taken, slipshow might use another port. In any case, it sends a notification with the address to use, so check your minibuffer or the *Messages* buffer.

Note

If your presentation is split in multiple files, you don’t need to start eglot for each of the files, as long as they are in the same folder. If they are in different folder, emacs has to be able to recognize “the root of the project” for it to work. It can do so by looking for a specific file or folder that defines a project root. A predefined one is .git, so adding a git repository to your root folder is enough. Another option is to customize “Project Vc Extra Root Markers” to add for instance .slipshow and create a .slipshow file at the root.

VSCode

Slipshow currently has an official VSCode extension. However, unfortunately, it has not yet been updated to support the new LSP server. This is ongoing work that is going to be included hopefully soon.

In the meantime, you can use a generic LSP server. Since VSCode does not provide an official one, I can say that “Generic LSP Proxy” works at least for displaying errors. Start it with the command palette, the first time using LSP Proxy: Initialize LSP Configuration and answer its follow up questions as:

  • Use a custom configuration

  • slipshow for the language ID

  • slipshow for the name of the command

  • .md for the extension of the files

  • stdio for the transport type

  • lsp for the argument to the command

Now that the LSP is configured, next time you can launch it simply with LSP Proxy: Restart LSP server.

Note

If you want a simpler setup, and don’t need the latest version of slipshow, you can still use the official slipshow extension, installable from the marketplaces.

Other editors

As long as your editor supports editing of markdown files, and the LSP protocol, you are good. Just start your LSP server with the command slipshow lsp!

And please contribute to the docs if you can improve it!