talk-slides

Talk slides

The Slides artifact type's own instructions cover the file format and the Artifact calls. This skill adds the author's rules, the layout builders and two checks.

Workflow

1. Agree on the parts first, one idea per slide. Put open choices to the user as short multiple-choice questions, and cite only the sources the user names.
2. Take every number from a primary source, keep the raw files next to the deck and recompute what you plot. Re-fetch live leaderboards on the day you publish and put the read date in the source line.
3. python3 scripts/build_template.py OUT writes one example slide per layout: cover, part divider, figure, numbers, columns. Build slides with scripts/deckkit.py, draw charts per deck in its tokens, and replace every bracketed string.
4. Before each publish, run python3 scripts/lint.py DECK_DIR and python3 scripts/audit_render.py RUNTIME_DIR; the audit's docstring says how to set up RUNTIME_DIR. Then look at every slide at full size, a screenshot per slide, and fix each position conflict before the user sees the deck, without being asked: text that touches other text, a line or a mark; a leader line that crosses a label; arrowheads on labels; anything clipped or off the slide. A label sits closer to its own item than to the next one. Check each chart against its source.
5. Read the live deck before publishing so edits made in the page survive, then send only the changed files.
6. Report in a few Chinese lines: the version, the link and what changed on which slide.

Slides

• Titles, slide and chart alike, are noun labels for what is shown and make no claim; none is a comma-joined list of clipped phrases. A title the user gives stays as given. The eyebrow names the part.
• The slide holds labels, numbers and at most one short sentence per block; the rest goes into the notes. Wording stays plain, without the "X, not Y" pattern, em dashes or the word campaign.
• The look is Google's, after the author's general exam deck: a white canvas with generous margins, and the four Google colors used to mark the parts of the talk and the one number that matters on a slide, never as decoration. Each slide's kicker carries a dot in its part's color; a part opens on a tonal divider. Nothing sits in a box: no tinted card tiles, no bordered panels; whitespace and hairlines separate the parts, big numbers stand on the white ground, and flows and comparisons are drawn as lines, timelines and tables. deckkit.py holds the tokens.
• Type is restrained and the same on every slide. Google Sans sets the display type: the cover (104), part dividers (96), slide titles (52), big numbers (84), the one lead line of a slide (32, in grey), panel and chart headings (28, medium) and the kicker (24, medium). Google Sans Text sets the rest: 26 for body text and table cells, 24 for labels, captions and sources. Weights are regular and medium only; emphasis is the accent color, and nothing is italic. An animation's canvas text keeps the same sizes and weights. The lint flags type off this scale.
• Data goes in charts, and so do concepts and mechanisms such as how a score is built: a chart, a pipeline or a worked example beats rows of labels and sentences. Each headline number sits beside the figure that produced it. A source's official figure is used as is.
• Every mark carries data. Leave out decorative icons, big numerals with no quantity behind them, invented examples, side facts such as cost or release counts, one model's numbers shown alone, and categories with fuzzy or unclear edges.
• Signed values are drawn as magnitudes with the two directions labelled at the ends; the source's sign convention goes in the notes.
• A paper takes three slides: its first page with the question, one method figure, one comparison figure.
• One slide per method, index or example. The first slide of a new topic says what it is and how it works, with one real example.
• An index slide shows its composition and principles; strengths and weaknesses go in the notes.
• A slide shows everything at once, so the speaker clicks once per slide. A click build is kept for a reveal that is the point, such as the answer to a question the audience first guesses. A sequence is drawn as one still picture, such as the start faint under the end. Animate only when the user asks: the animation is then one continuous scene in an <x-embed>, a canvas drawn as a function of time, each phase as long as the note lines said over it.
• A leaderboard shows the top five with the uncertainty the source publishes, and its title names the interval.
• The cover states title, author and date. The agenda lists the parts, and the summary gives one point per part and a closing line.