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Keynote Really is XML

Posted by pudge on from the well-yeah dept.

jonknee writes "During the latest MacWorld keynote, Steve Jobs announced new presentation software dubbed Keynote. It looked pretty sweet, but what caught my ear was Jobs' remark that it was XML based. As soon as I got my hands on Keynote, I investigated the .key file and found its XML portion (which is quite excellent XML at that). For those not lucky enough to have the software, I posted the blank presentation I took a peek at." I just want to know when someone is going to write up a Keynote module for Perl ...

7 of 45 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Could be a nice thing, if ... by srinner · · Score: 5, Insightful

    During the presentation Jobs mentioned, that you could for instance create presentations with scripts connected to your acounting-system to reflect your current numbers - so I assume Apple won't prosecute others for creating the files

  2. XML is not a panecea by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Look. When is it going to get through people's heads that just because data has an XML representation it means you can instantly decipher the contents of the data? XML is a data format, that's all. Without a well-defined semantics it is no easier reverse-engineer XML than it is to reverse engineer a binary format. Sure, it may *look* human readable, and it may make it only marginally easier to achieve 99% compatability, but it's the last 1% that will always stifle the ability to write filters for KeyNote, Word, or (pick you favorite "We do XML therefore we are open" software).

    That said, I would not be at all surprised if Apple published a Keynote XML schema and semantic specification, once the product has stablized. They'd better, if they want to see their vision come to light.

    1. Re:XML is not a panecea by Ivan+Raikov · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Without a well-defined semantics it is no easier reverse-engineer XML than it is to reverse engineer a binary format.

      True, but what sane programmer will use XML as a mere wrapper for Base64-encoded binary data? Outside of Microsoft, anybody with reasonable programming experience will indeed use XML as it's meant to be used, and adhere to strict, well-documented (and hopefully published) semantic specifications. While Apple software certainly has its issues, I think we should give them a little more credit this time.

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    2. Re:XML is not a panecea by smallpaul · · Score: 3, Insightful

      The second the keynote ended, I got calls from any of the Mac-user clients I've ever had asking me if I could write them tools to connect their various systems to their Keynote presentations. "Ummm, yeah..." is all I can say, though that answer can also apply to "can you make a full scale model of a porcupine out of toothpicks?"

      Dude. Take a look at the file format. It is simple. Plus it borrows heavily from SVG (for paths and transforms). SVG is an openly documented standards. (too bad Keynote didn't use SVG rather than borrowing from it!) If you really don't see that that's easier to reverse engineer than the PowerPoint file format then you don't have much experience in reverse engineering.

      I mean look at. It has an element called "master-slides." I wonder what that means. It has elements called shadow-style. dash-style. fill. I wonder what those mean? Just use your common sense and you can figure out 90% of it without even stretching your brain.

  3. Re:Could be a nice thing, if ... by Void · · Score: 4, Insightful

    nice, nice, very nice. Maybe this is the beginning of the end of the powerpoint-era?

  4. Re:Could be a nice thing, if ... by sean23007 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Yup, that would make a lot of sense. Apple sues someone for making a "compatible" file format to their new XML-based format that is created by the program that reads and saves to Microsoft's proprietary file format. They did it, and if they have any sense of justice, they will let us do it too...

    I'm not saying that we are guaranteed to be able to, just that Apple probably won't make much of a stink, considering that one of the major draws of their program is that they were able to do that to another format.

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    Lack of eloquence does not denote lack of intelligence, though they often coincide.
  5. Re:Could be a nice thing, if ... by dhovis · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Steve Jobs said in his presentation that he envisions people writing programs to auto-generate Keynote files. That is why they chose XML. Apple intends it to be open and easy to use.

    The thing about Keynote that sets it apart (in my mind), is that it is a presentation program that is geared towards computer presentations, rather than slides or overheads. I doubt Apple considers Keynote a "core" application, but rather a showpiece for what you can do with Quartz, Quartz Extreme (for the Open GL effects), and the Cocoa API. They throw in the professionally designed slide templates as a bonus.

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