Discussion
I love #Inkscape, and I love giving talks! So why not make slides using Inkscape?
My idea is to write a tool that looks at the layers of an SVG document, and creates one PDF page per layer, in top-to-bottom order. On the page, only that layer, plus all parent layers, would be visible.
That way, you could have an always-visible "master slide" in the background, and create simple step-by-step animations. In this example, "2" would be shown first, then "2a", then "2ab". After that, only "3".
This is clearly inspired by #JessyInk, an #Inkscape plugin that does a similar thing! I've used it to give talks in the past. It's pretty neat, and even though it hasn't been updated since ~2010, it still works!
But it doesn't support nested layers/step-by-step animations, and the only way to view the result is to open a JavaScript-instrumented SVG in the browser…
I've also found https://mossblaser.github.io/slidie/, which allows more complex "animations" inspired by LaTeX Beamer syntax. But it's one file per slide, apparently? That seems like a huge hassle to me. :/
So… I'm interested in two things: Have you seen a tool/plugin that would feel similar to use?
And second: Are there any #Inkscape lovers out there who would have the need for such a tool? I'd be curious about your wishes/requirements! :)
When editing the file, turning the layers on/off a lot would be a bit inconvenient. Maybe a dedicated plugin could help with that.
And then, there are some possibilities for making the "renderer" happen:
It could be an external tool that you point at the SVG, and it outputs the PDF, as fast as possible.
It could be an Inkscape plugin; but all I've used felt a bit iffy, I dunno…
It could be a script that does as little as possible, and calls Inkscape on the command line for rendering?
So I made a little prototype of my #Inkscape to slide generator! You can find the Rust code here: https://codeberg.org/blinry/inkslide
It will create one PDF page per layer, which shows that layer plus all parents. It's pretty fast, because all pages can be processed in parallel (thanks to the rayon library)!
I noticed that as an exception, the topmost layer should not be rendered to its own slide (I use it as a "master slide").
