This program can be used for Pecha Kucha-Sessions by displaying the next slide every 20 seconds. It consists of a presentation-screen which shows the slides to the audience as well as a lookup-screen which shows the current slide as well as a timer showing the seconds until the next slide shows up. This time can also be shown on an Arduino with a NeoPixel-Shield.
Jar available at the releases-section.
Install poppler-utils if you want to use the PDFToPPM-Local-renderer. If you want to establish a Arduino-connection, you need to install rxtx. Write down, where rxtx has been installed.
Start the program by calling java -jar pechakuchatool-§version§-all.jar, where §version§ is your current version of this program.
A setup-screen should appear.
If you want to also use an Arduino, run java -Djava.library.path=§rxtx-location§:§jni-location§ -jar pechakuchatool-§version§-all.jar, where §rxtx-location§ is the location of your rxtx-lib and §jni-location§ is the location of your jni.
The latter one is /usr/lib/jni by default when using ubuntu.
If you mark the jar as executable, you might be able to run it from your desktop right away.
The setup-screen the program launches with allows you to make some settings before starting a presentation. The first two options allow you to set the location of the presentation-screen as well as the lookup-screen. By default, the lookup-screen is set to the internal monitor or primary display, while the presentation-screen is set to the first external monitor. If there is just one monitor, both screens are shown on the same display. Next, there is an option to choose the PDF-renderer to use. By default, the "IcePDF"-renderer is selected. Note, that the "PDFToPPM-Local"-renderer should only be used if poppler-utils has been installed. Last it can be chosen, whether an Arduino-connection shall be established or not.
After the setup has been completed, a file to present has to be picked.
To do so, click File -> Open File to open a PDF-Document.
Alternatively, press Strg + O on your keyboard.
The presentation should now load.
Depending on the renderer, this can take up to 30 seconds.
After loading the file, a couple of things can be done:
- Skipping through the slides by pressing
Up, Down, Left, Right, Page-Up, Page-Down - Starting the Presentation by clicking
Presentation -> Start Presentationor pressingSpace - Resizing the Slides to the current display-sizes by clicking
View -> Fit Viewersor pressingF.
While the presentation is running, skipping through the slides is prohibited.
You can reset the running presentation by clicking Presentation -> Reset Presentation or pressing R.
This will also bring you to the first slide of your presentation.
To close the program, press File -> Exit.
A presentation can now be started from the current slide. You can do this by clicking Presentation -> Start Presentation from current Slide or pressing Alt + C.
When using the "PDFToPPM-Local"-renderer it is now possible to save and load the pre-rendered presentations thus speeding up the process of switching slide-sets. The file-ending *.pktool should be used when working with pre-rendered presentations.
Save a presentation by clicking File -> Save pre-rendered Presentation or pressing Ctrl + S.
a presentation by clicking File -> Open pre-rendered Presentation or pressing Alt + O.
Note that loading pre-rendered presentations is supported even if poppler-utils are not installed.
Simply pick the pdftoppm-local-renderer to load a pre-rendered presentation.
Also, it is now possible to pre-render every PDF-file within a folder for faster loading when using the PopplerUtils-renderer.
To start a prerender use java -jar pechakuchatool-§version§-all.jar -prerender <pathToFolder>.
The .pktool-files are always saved in the same folder of the input-PDFs.
It is now possible to set a maximum amount of slides to be displayed (default: 20, Interval: 1 -- MAX_INT) as well as a time per slide in seconds (default: 20, Interval: 1 -- 99) in the setup-screen.
The screen will switch to black if the maximum amount of slides has been reached (e.g. by default the 21st slide won't be shown anymore).
It can be made visible again by clicking View -> Toggle Black Screen or pressing Alt + B.
BUG: Note, that when using the IcePDF-renderer and letting a presentation run to its end, the slides will only appear again by starting the presentation again. They cannot be made visible again using the way described above.
Also, it is now possible to hide the slides-panels manually by clicking View -> Toggle Black Screen or pressing Alt + B.
To use an Arduino, first the Arduino-sketch has to be loaded to the arduino itself.
It can be found inside the arduino-folder at the projects' root.
Note, that the pin used to connect to your shield might differ depending on your NeoPixel-shield.
When connected to power, the shield should display 00 on its LED-matrix.
Also don't forget to load the rxtx-library as mentioned above.
Please, do not depend on the time shown on the Arduino as it is currently quite buggy. The connection might crash during your presentation, leading the arduino to show the last time before the crash happened. Also at the moment, the connection can only be reestablished by restarting the program.
This is the default PDF-renderer of this program, requiring no prerequisites regarding third party programmes. Advantages of this renderer are that it is fast on startup, but might have some issues regarding correct rendering as well as being slow at page changes.
This is the second renderer, requiring poppler-utils to be installed and accessible on the system (e.g. by adding it to the path). Advantages are correct rendering and quick page changes, while requiring a long waiting period during the initial loading phase of up to 30 seconds.
For building the program, type ./gradlew run on UNIX-based systems or gradlew.bat run if using Windows.
For building the jar type ./gradlew fatJar on UNIX-based systems or gradlew.bat fatJar if using Windows.
Feel free to write an issue or set a pull request if you encounter any problems.
Gereon Dusella for ISE @ TU Berlin, Licensed under GNU GPLv3