Installation

There are different ways to have access to the slipshow compiler:

The best option for people comfortable with it is to use the command line interface. It is distributed through various mediums:

  • You can download precompiled binaries for Mac and Linux, and Windows through WSL

  • Slipshow is packaged in the opam package manager, if you have it all it takes is opam install slipshow.

  • You can always compile from source!

For online-only use, consider the online sliphub editor. It is great for trying the tool but is currently limited, for instance for anything that requires multiple files.

There are other options that currently are lagging behind in terms of version, but that I might revisit some day: the VSCode extension and the slipshow editor.

Precompiled binaries

Precompiled binaries are available to download in the release page of the project. Save the file corresponding to your architecture, and make it available by moving to a directory included in your $PATH, e.g. /usr/local/bin.

Note that Mac user needs to have a homebrew installation until this bug is fixed. They also need some libraries, eg libffi.

You can test that the slipshow binary is available by running:

$ slipshow --help

If the help shows up, you successfully installed slipshow!

Using opam

Slipshow is packaged in the default opam repository so you can install it simply with

$ opam install slipshow

You can test that the slipshow binary is available by running:

$ slipshow --help

If the help shows up, you successfully installed slipshow! If, even after opam claims to have successfully installed it, slipshow is not available, it might be that you need to do:

$ eval $(opam env)

This updates your environment to include the packages installed by opam.

The sliphub online editor

The sliphub online editor is a quick way to try out slipshow, as it does not require any setup. This link will open a page with an editor on the left, and a preview on the right.

Currently, the interface is quite minimal. Your progress is saved “live” and you can even do collaborative editing: two people editing the same document.

Remember the link to be able to come back to your document later! And save your work locally: This is still experimental.

The VS Code plugin

The VS Code plugin can be downloaded from the official marketplace as well as from open VSX. This means that searching the slipshow extension directly from within VS Code should yield a result in most cases!

The VS Code plugin provides two commands: - Compile presentation. Open the command palette, and type “Compile slipshow”. This should compile the presentation in a .html of the same name. - Preview presentation. Open the command palette, and type “Preview slipshow”. This should open a new window with a live preview of your presentation!

Compiling from source

Follow the instructions available in the CONTRIBUTING.md file on the github repository.

Upgrading

Upgrading is made just by repeating the installation process when a new version is available.

If you are using a new version to compile an old presentation, make sure to read the release notes and fully verify the output before presenting! Slipshow has not yet reached a stable state and releases often contains small breaking changes (most of the time, easy to fix).