console.pl - demo script for WWW::Slides
See version at beginning of script, variable $VERSION, or call
shell$ console.pl --version
console.pl [--usage] [--help] [--man] [--version] console.pl [--control-port|-P <port>] [--control-host|-H <host>] [--http-port|-p <port>] [--must-book|-b] [--slides-file|-s <filename>]
# Start it all, use defaults, auto-reconnect if possible shell$ console.pl # Ditto, but values on command line (these are equal to defaults) shell$ console.pl -P 50506 -H localhost -p 50505 # Force booking of clients shell$ console.pl -b # Use custom slides instead of demo ones shell$ console.pl --slides-file slides.html
This script is a simple demo of the WWW::Slides capabilities.
At the moment, WWW::Slides allows the creation of one or more talks that can be served via HTTP. You can start a simplistic HTTP server on a port of your choice, that allows browsers to connect in order to make them show slides.
This console script starts the server for you if it's not already running, otherwise it will reconnect to the existing one. Via the console you can set various things on the server, e.g. which slide to show, if clients are allowed to detach from the main served slide, and so on.
The slide production is not the core target of WWW::Slides, despite its name. There are plenty of html-slide production systems out there, and they are surely all valid.
The basic working model in WWW::Slides is that each slide is contained inside a separated HTML div whose id is different from the others, like this:
div
<html> <head><title>The title...</title></head> <body> <div id="slide1"> ... </div> <div id="slide2"> ... </div> <div id="slide3"> ... </div> </body> </html>
When a slide is sent to the client, two scenarios are possible:
the slide has never been sent to the client.
the slide has already been sent to the given client.
In the former case, the whole text for the div is sent to the client, in the latter the "cached" version is used. In both cases, the previous slide is hidden setting its display style to none, and the new one is activated setting its display style to block. When all slides have been sent, the slide transition is only a matter of hiding and showing the right div.
display
none
block
At the moment, there is a rudimentary reading mechanism to partition an input HTML file into different interesting sections:
a preamble, which is the HTML start including all head up to the opening body tag. Note that this tag should be on a line on its own;
body
a slide for each div encountered. Opening and closing of slide's divs should be on lines on their own.
Slides will be numbered with an increasing numerical id as they are read in input. You should ensure that each one has a different identifier. For sake of consistency with the usual slide numbering, the numerical ids will start from one.
Slides reading will be hopefully made better in the future, possibly with integration with specific slide production systems.
The server part will be started automatically if the console is not able to reconnect to a pre-existent one listening on the given port. By default, some three slides bundled in this script will be served, just to show the capabilities, but you can provide a slide file of your own via the --slides-file|-s option, like this:
--slides-file|-s
shell$ console.pl --slides-file slides.html shell$ console.pl -s slides.html
At the moment the slides.html handling is very simplistic, take the example in the __DATA__ section as an inspiration. Things will hopefully change in the future.
slides.html
The server accepts client browser connections on the port given with the option --http-port|-p, like this:
--http-port|-p
shell$ console.pl --http-port 8080 shell$ console.pl -p 8080
You can force the clients to give you a booking code when they enter, by specifing the <--must-book|-b> option:
shell$ console.pl --http-port 8080 --must-book
If this is the case, you can book clients from the console itself (see following paragraph), and then clients must put the booking code as the path in the provided URI. This will ease handling via automated scripts and CGI, hopefully, providing a simple authorisation mechanism.
The server also listens to a given port for consoles to connect and send commands. You can specify which port will be used for this using the <--control-port|-H> option:
shell$ console.pl --control-port 56789
NOTE: the server will *not* be started if the --control-host|-H option is set to something different from localhost or 127.0.0.1.
--control-host|-H
localhost
127.0.0.1
The console part is a simple way to send commands to the server part. You can provide the address/port to connect to using the --control-host|-H and --control-port|-P options:
--control-port|-P
shell$ console.pl -H slides.example.com -P 56789
Note that if you provide a hostname different from localhost or 127.0.0.1 the script will not start a server for you on the given port.
Once you're inside the console, you are presented with the list of the currently connected client browsers and a prompt, like this:
current slide: 1 1: a0a51083f9f431e9 (127.0.0.1:34254), attached, slide 1 2: 374b0e9038efb292 (127.0.0.1:34257), attached, slide 1 WWW::Slides>
For each client, you find:
a numerical identifier that you can use in some of the commands detailed later
the client id (which is equal to the booking code if these codes are used)
the address/port the client is connecting from
the attachment status, i.e. if the given client follows the slide transition mechanism of the talk or not (more on this later).
the slide number currently seen by the client.
In the following, the client browser is usually referred to as attendee.
You have five basic commands to move around the presentation:
these commands set the slide on the first or last, respectively;
go back a slide or to the next one. Note that you will not be able to bo before the first slide or beyond the last one;
go to the specified slide
Every command also accepts the specification of the attendee(s) to which the command applies. By default, it will be applied to the attached ones (see later "Attachment Status" for details). A sample session:
current slide: 1 1: a0a51083f9f431e9 (127.0.0.1:34254), attached, slide 1 2: 374b0e9038efb292 (127.0.0.1:34257), attached, slide 1 WWW::Slides> next 200 OK current slide: 2 1: a0a51083f9f431e9 (127.0.0.1:34254), attached, slide 2 2: 374b0e9038efb292 (127.0.0.1:34257), attached, slide 2 WWW::Slides> last 200 OK current slide: 3 1: a0a51083f9f431e9 (127.0.0.1:34254), attached, slide 3 2: 374b0e9038efb292 (127.0.0.1:34257), attached, slide 3 WWW::Slides> previous 200 OK current slide: 2 1: a0a51083f9f431e9 (127.0.0.1:34254), attached, slide 2 2: 374b0e9038efb292 (127.0.0.1:34257), attached, slide 2 WWW::Slides> first 200 OK current slide: 1 1: a0a51083f9f431e9 (127.0.0.1:34254), attached, slide 1 2: 374b0e9038efb292 (127.0.0.1:34257), attached, slide 1 WWW::Slides> previous 200 OK current slide: 1 1: a0a51083f9f431e9 (127.0.0.1:34254), attached, slide 1 2: 374b0e9038efb292 (127.0.0.1:34257), attached, slide 1 WWW::Slides> last 200 OK current slide: 3 1: a0a51083f9f431e9 (127.0.0.1:34254), attached, slide 3 2: 374b0e9038efb292 (127.0.0.1:34257), attached, slide 3 WWW::Slides> next 200 OK current slide: 3 1: a0a51083f9f431e9 (127.0.0.1:34254), attached, slide 3 2: 374b0e9038efb292 (127.0.0.1:34257), attached, slide 3 WWW::Slides> show 1 200 OK current slide: 1 1: a0a51083f9f431e9 (127.0.0.1:34254), attached, slide 1 2: 374b0e9038efb292 (127.0.0.1:34257), attached, slide 1 WWW::Slides> show 2 200 OK current slide: 2 1: a0a51083f9f431e9 (127.0.0.1:34254), attached, slide 2 2: 374b0e9038efb292 (127.0.0.1:34257), attached, slide 2 WWW::Slides>
You can think about the talk as if there were a main screen where the speaker projects the slides, while the attendees also have a printed copy of the presentation available in their hands. Which one they are seeing depends on their attachment status.
When the attendee is attached, the attendee is looking at the slide on the main screen, i.e. is attached to the speaker's talk. On the other hand, when the attendee is detached it means that she is looking at the slides in her hands, and a slide transition on the main screen will not change what the attendee is looking at.
The console has two commands to handle the attachment status: attach and detach. By default, they work on all the attendees:
attach
detach
current slide: 1 1: a0a51083f9f431e9 (127.0.0.1:34254), attached, slide 1 2: 374b0e9038efb292 (127.0.0.1:34257), attached, slide 1 WWW::Slides> detach 200 OK current slide: 1 1: a0a51083f9f431e9 (127.0.0.1:34254), detached, slide 1 2: 374b0e9038efb292 (127.0.0.1:34257), detached, slide 1 WWW::Slides> attach 200 OK current slide: 1 1: a0a51083f9f431e9 (127.0.0.1:34254), attached, slide 1 2: 374b0e9038efb292 (127.0.0.1:34257), attached, slide 1 WWW::Slides>
You can also provide either their numerical progressive id, or their extended id:
current slide: 1 1: a0a51083f9f431e9 (127.0.0.1:34254), attached, slide 1 2: 374b0e9038efb292 (127.0.0.1:34257), attached, slide 1 WWW::Slides> detach 1 200 OK current slide: 1 1: a0a51083f9f431e9 (127.0.0.1:34254), detached, slide 1 2: 374b0e9038efb292 (127.0.0.1:34257), attached, slide 1 WWW::Slides> detach 374b0e9038efb292 200 OK current slide: 1 1: a0a51083f9f431e9 (127.0.0.1:34254), detached, slide 1 2: 374b0e9038efb292 (127.0.0.1:34257), detached, slide 1 WWW::Slides> attach 2 200 OK current slide: 1 1: a0a51083f9f431e9 (127.0.0.1:34254), detached, slide 1 2: 374b0e9038efb292 (127.0.0.1:34257), attached, slide 1 WWW::Slides>
As anticipated, when a client is detached it does not follow the main talk:
current slide: 1 1: a0a51083f9f431e9 (127.0.0.1:34254), detached, slide 1 2: 374b0e9038efb292 (127.0.0.1:34257), attached, slide 1 WWW::Slides> next 200 OK current slide: 2 1: a0a51083f9f431e9 (127.0.0.1:34254), detached, slide 1 2: 374b0e9038efb292 (127.0.0.1:34257), attached, slide 2 WWW::Slides> next 200 OK current slide: 3 1: a0a51083f9f431e9 (127.0.0.1:34254), detached, slide 1 2: 374b0e9038efb292 (127.0.0.1:34257), attached, slide 3 WWW::Slides>
But you can let the attendee move around, of course:
current slide: 3 1: a0a51083f9f431e9 (127.0.0.1:34254), detached, slide 1 2: 374b0e9038efb292 (127.0.0.1:34257), attached, slide 3 WWW::Slides> next 1 200 OK current slide: 3 1: a0a51083f9f431e9 (127.0.0.1:34254), detached, slide 2 2: 374b0e9038efb292 (127.0.0.1:34257), attached, slide 3 WWW::Slides> next a0a51083f9f431e9 200 OK current slide: 3 1: a0a51083f9f431e9 (127.0.0.1:34254), detached, slide 3 2: 374b0e9038efb292 (127.0.0.1:34257), attached, slide 3 WWW::Slides>
The attach command, of course, Does The Right Thing when re-attaching an attendee, i.e. it forces her on the current slide.
If you want to prevent a client from detaching, you can use the clamp command. This will re-attach any detached client, and block them on the talk's slide. You can then re-enable detaching with the loose command. These two commands work on a higher - i.e. talk - level and are not specific per attendee.
clamp
loose
You can book an attendee with the book command, like this:
book
WWW::Slides> book <identifier>
The client browser will then have to connect using the correct URI including the identifier in the path info. For example, if you book the following:
WWW::Slides> book my-client-1
and the server process is running on example.com:50505, the URI to use for the connection will be:
example.com:50505
http://example.com:50505/my-client-1
The booking process is enabled only if the server was started with the --must-book|-b option.
--must-book|-b
You have two choices to quit:
you can press CTRL-D and quit from the console, but leave the server process running, or
you can type quit and force the server to exit as well.
quit
set the port where the server is listening (or will listen, if the server is auto-launched).
Defaults to 50506.
set the host to connect to. If this option is either localhost or 127.0.0.1 the server process will be launched if not existent.
Defaults to localhost.
print a somewhat more verbose help, showing usage, this description of the options and some examples from the synopsis.
the port where the attendees can connect to in order to receive slides.
Defaults to 50505.
print out the full documentation for the script.
sets if the booking mechanism should be used. See Booking.
Default is that no booking necessary, any client can connect.
sets the file from where the slides should be read.
By default slides are taken from the __DATA__ section of this script, where there are some sample slides. You can mimic the structure of these slides to produce yours.
__DATA__
print a concise usage line and exit.
print the version of the script.
Any error in the server will be (usually) trapped and the text sent to the connected console. This happens if the server succeeds to reach the run state, of course. In other cases, the error message should be descriptive for itself.
run
I'm too lazy to detail possible error conditions for the console, sorry :)
console.pl requires no configuration files or environment variables.
Without WWW::Slides you won't go very far. Moreover, you will need Term::ReadLine.
No bugs have been reported.
Please report any bugs or feature requests through http://rt.cpan.org/
Flavio Poletti flavio@polettix.it
flavio@polettix.it
Copyright (c) 2006, Flavio Poletti flavio@polettix.it. All rights reserved.
This script is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself. See perlartistic and perlgpl.
Questo script è software libero: potete ridistribuirlo e/o modificarlo negli stessi termini di Perl stesso. Vedete anche perlartistic e perlgpl.
BECAUSE THIS SOFTWARE IS LICENSED FREE OF CHARGE, THERE IS NO WARRANTY FOR THE SOFTWARE, TO THE EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW. EXCEPT WHEN OTHERWISE STATED IN WRITING THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND/OR OTHER PARTIES PROVIDE THE SOFTWARE "AS IS" WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. THE ENTIRE RISK AS TO THE QUALITY AND PERFORMANCE OF THE SOFTWARE IS WITH YOU. SHOULD THE SOFTWARE PROVE DEFECTIVE, YOU ASSUME THE COST OF ALL NECESSARY SERVICING, REPAIR, OR CORRECTION.
IN NO EVENT UNLESS REQUIRED BY APPLICABLE LAW OR AGREED TO IN WRITING WILL ANY COPYRIGHT HOLDER, OR ANY OTHER PARTY WHO MAY MODIFY AND/OR REDISTRIBUTE THE SOFTWARE AS PERMITTED BY THE ABOVE LICENCE, BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR DAMAGES, INCLUDING ANY GENERAL, SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES ARISING OUT OF THE USE OR INABILITY TO USE THE SOFTWARE (INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO LOSS OF DATA OR DATA BEING RENDERED INACCURATE OR LOSSES SUSTAINED BY YOU OR THIRD PARTIES OR A FAILURE OF THE SOFTWARE TO OPERATE WITH ANY OTHER SOFTWARE), EVEN IF SUCH HOLDER OR OTHER PARTY HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.
Poiché questo software viene dato con una licenza gratuita, non c'è alcuna garanzia associata ad esso, ai fini e per quanto permesso dalle leggi applicabili. A meno di quanto possa essere specificato altrove, il proprietario e detentore del copyright fornisce questo software "così com'è" senza garanzia di alcun tipo, sia essa espressa o implicita, includendo fra l'altro (senza però limitarsi a questo) eventuali garanzie implicite di commerciabilità e adeguatezza per uno scopo particolare. L'intero rischio riguardo alla qualità ed alle prestazioni di questo software rimane a voi. Se il software dovesse dimostrarsi difettoso, vi assumete tutte le responsabilità ed i costi per tutti i necessari servizi, riparazioni o correzioni.
In nessun caso, a meno che ciò non sia richiesto dalle leggi vigenti o sia regolato da un accordo scritto, alcuno dei detentori del diritto di copyright, o qualunque altra parte che possa modificare, o redistribuire questo software così come consentito dalla licenza di cui sopra, potrà essere considerato responsabile nei vostri confronti per danni, ivi inclusi danni generali, speciali, incidentali o conseguenziali, derivanti dall'utilizzo o dall'incapacità di utilizzo di questo software. Ciò include, a puro titolo di esempio e senza limitarsi ad essi, la perdita di dati, l'alterazione involontaria o indesiderata di dati, le perdite sostenute da voi o da terze parti o un fallimento del software ad operare con un qualsivoglia altro software. Tale negazione di garanzia rimane in essere anche se i dententori del copyright, o qualsiasi altra parte, è stata avvisata della possibilità di tali danneggiamenti.
Se decidete di utilizzare questo software, lo fate a vostro rischio e pericolo. Se pensate che i termini di questa negazione di garanzia non si confacciano alle vostre esigenze, o al vostro modo di considerare un software, o ancora al modo in cui avete sempre trattato software di terze parti, non usatelo. Se lo usate, accettate espressamente questa negazione di garanzia e la piena responsabilità per qualsiasi tipo di danno, di qualsiasi natura, possa derivarne.
1 POD Error
The following errors were encountered while parsing the POD:
Non-ASCII character seen before =encoding in 'è'. Assuming CP1252
To install WWW::Slides, copy and paste the appropriate command in to your terminal.
cpanm
cpanm WWW::Slides
CPAN shell
perl -MCPAN -e shell install WWW::Slides
For more information on module installation, please visit the detailed CPAN module installation guide.