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Presentation Remotes for OpenOffice Impress?
saintlupus asks: "I'm going to be teaching an introductory Computer Science class in the fall, and I'm using OpenOffice Impress on my Debian Powerbook for a lot of the lecture material. Does anyone know of a brand of wireless remote that works with this presentation software? I'd rather not be locked behind the podium while I'm teaching, so the idea of a remote is appealing, but nobody lists Linux compatibility for these things."
I would choose an attractive young woman from the class and appoint her as the "Presentation Operator".
When you want to advance a slide, point at her, flick your thumb in the traditional "hey baby, I'm the man" motion, and make a *CLK* sound with your mouth.
To back up a slide or two, I would personally walk over to her and whisper the request.
(to the PC sensitive, I'm joking. anyway, it's only sexist if you're not a pretty girl, because the pretty girls know they're pretty, and they know it gives them preferential treatment... and they'll take the advantage.)
.sigs are for post^Hers.
If nothing else, you might be able to just use a wireless mouse. Isn't left click the next slide button? Can't remember... And with a mouse you can navigate if needed. Don't know if Bluetooth will go that far. A boss of mine had a wireless trackball that worked clear across the room, before the days of bluetooth. It was really cool, you held it like a gun and worked the track ball with your thumb and mouse click with the trigger finger. That might work too.
Great ideas often receive violent opposition from mediocre minds. - Albert Einstein
Wireless Trackball
Here is Another
They specifically mentioned they are good for presentations. Do I get an A, Prof?
Great ideas often receive violent opposition from mediocre minds. - Albert Einstein
That's what you really want, a presentation mouse, like this one:. Shows up as a USB mouse to the system, so it "Just Works(tm)" on any USB-friendly system (Win9X doesn't count). Doubly so with your powerbook, as you should already have X configured to talk to the input-core mouse mux (/dev/input/mice), where as PC saps might have to add the /dev/input/mice to their X config.
- RustyTaco
You can get ATI All-In-Wonder remotes fairly cheaply online (ebay, for example) without the card.
They are supported in the stock 2.6 kernels, and if you're running 2.4, there's an external module you can compile.
From the system's standpoint, it's a HID device that functions as both a mouse (with the joypad and a couple buttons) and a keyboard (the rest of the buttons... so there's no interfacing involved.
The best thing about this remote is it is NOT IR, it is in fact RF, so the range is MUCH better (you can walk around the room) and you don't have to point it at the machine every time you want to do anything with it (you can even have it in your pocket if you want, though you'd have to wear loose clothes).
- Preferences: Solaris 10 (servers), Ubuntu (desktops), Solaris 11 (personal servers) -
So this is a meaningless Ask Slashdot; just go grab whatever wireless pointing/clicking device you feel like and have at it
I thought the same thing, until I borrowed a rather pricy Interlink remote control from another office and it didn't work at all with Impress. The problem was that it showed up to the OS as a USB Keyboard rather than a pointing device, and pushing the "next" button just sent a keystroke to the machine rather than the mouse click event.
This stuff is made to work with Powerpoint -- understandable, since they're the 800 lb gorilla in this space. That's why I chose to Ask Slashdot, because I figured that I couldn't possibly be the only person who has wanted to use Impress in a classroom.
--saint
I have a Keyspan presentation remote, and it acts like both a mouse and a keyboard. The key combo it uses is Page Up and Page Down for slides so it should work fine with Impress, but you can also use left and right mouse clicks. It works in Linux and on the Mac.
I use mine to click through my LaTeX Beamer slides in Acrobat, and it works like a charm.
The benefit of using a presentation remote over a wireless mouse is that you also get a laser pointer. While some people use them very poorly (follow the moving dot -- through the entire presentation!), they are very handy when used correctly.