Figma Slides • Hacker News Board

Re: Figma Slides

#111

Post by 29ebJCyy » Thu, Jun 27, 2024, 5:09 AM UTC

dijit wrote: post #78

webdood90 wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it's possible to make your point without disparaging others that you feel are beneath you

No, some people should be shamed into being better. I was shamed into using more advanced operating systems and it ended up with me having a hugely important and detailed understanding of operating system design. This has been hugely beneficial not just to me but to every person I worked with since. I would not have elected to do this and not edged out of my comfort zone if I had not been shamed. I was resistant to c…

Some people get abused into being better, but it's not the only way.

Re: Figma Slides

#112

Post by sho » Thu, Jun 27, 2024, 5:31 AM UTC

impure wrote: post #4

iA Writer also added presentations recently. Seems like presentation software is getting popular again.

I like IA and I'm checking out their new presenter, thanks for the tip. But geeze I wish they'd have a better example in their showreel video. Who, exactly, makes, presents and is presented with these "What is design?" fluff shows with giant "inspirational" pictures accompanied a single line of text? Even Apple has to occasionally show, you know, a slide that isn't just a giant well-chosen picture.

Re: Figma Slides

#113

Post by zarzavat » Thu, Jun 27, 2024, 5:37 AM UTC

diegof79 wrote: post #95

patchorang wrote: post #21

Designers are pretty good at siloing themselves. I worry this may further silo them as the rest of the business will continue to use PPT. Designers frequently express frustration about "not having a seat at the table." It's going to be tough to influence the business when using a different tool than everyone else. Edit: PPT or Google Slides* My point was more about using the tool that the rest of the business is usin…

The goal is to use the best tool to solve a problem. But it is tricky when you don’t know better and everyone around you follows the herd for different reasons. Most presentation tools are poorly designed. For example, many cognitive studies support the idea that the same brain channel handles text and speech. If you try to read and listen to different things, you can’t simultaneously pay full attention to both. Yet…

Slides are consumed in a variety of different ways.

Slides can be something to keep the eyes busy while someone is talking IRL. Alternatively, they can be a way to exchange information outside of a presentation, reading them like a book. In the latter case, bullet points are quite useful.

A lot of features of presentation software are there solely to stop people from going to sleep.

Re: Figma Slides

#114

Post by johnoh_lilysai » Thu, Jun 27, 2024, 5:40 AM UTC

For anyone has hard time watching full figma config conference keynote - I made detailed summary note for that video. Hope this can help you guys.

https://lilys.ai/digest/842857

Re: Figma Slides

#115

Post by ianleighton » Thu, Jun 27, 2024, 5:40 AM UTC

timr wrote: post #67

yoz wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, I didn't know about that Keynote feature, that's amazing. it really shows the extent to which they care about visual design as an end result. I desperately wish Apple's office apps got more development. They have the potential to be world-beating (especially Numbers) but Apple seems content to just update a couple of minor features a year and leave it at that.

Keynote is absolutely the presentation software a designer would create, if they didn't have to do it while being saddled with inappropriate technologies. I'm a pragmatist and I understand why collaborative editing and web-based "files" won out...but when you use a well-crafted piece of desktop software like Keynote it really makes you wistful for what might have been. People have forgotten how much of a hole you dig…

My only counter to this is that after, what, two _decades_, Apple _still_ has not added the ability to adjust number boxes with the up/down arrows on the keyboard (like text size for example). A designer would have included this on day 1, it’s such a common UI pattern in design tools.

If anyone on the iWork team is reading this, _please_ get to that Radar.

Re: Figma Slides

#116

Post by wraptile » Thu, Jun 27, 2024, 5:51 AM UTC

Played around for 30 minutes and it's kinda underwhelming. It works and is pleasant to use but it's very simple and doesn't really do anything any slides software from 10 years ago couldn't do.

Re: Figma Slides

#117

Post by wraptile » Thu, Jun 27, 2024, 5:53 AM UTC

sirjaz wrote: post #102

This is just another webapp, please God please can we go back to making true desktop/native apps again. We have these powerful machines that are under utilized for what they are.

While I'd agree with you 99% of the time Figma's web stack is probably one of the very few that can actually compete against native/desktop apps.

Re: Figma Slides

#118

Post by gherkinnn » Thu, Jun 27, 2024, 6:21 AM UTC

I have fallen in love with the opposite approach: IA Presenter [0] (no affiliation).

It's just markdown and content. The rest is taken from you.

0 - https://ia.net/presenter

Re: Figma Slides

#119

Post by IshKebab » Thu, Jun 27, 2024, 6:32 AM UTC

sho wrote: post #103

IshKebab wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah I used Excalidraw for a while, but once the novelty of the sketchy look wears off it's really a very basic drawing program. Not suitable for proper technical diagrams (which to be fair it isn't intended to be). In a way it felt to me like Excalidraw works around your diagrams not looking very good by just making them obviously not intended to look good. But Draw.io solves that problem by just making them actuall…

> They don't work anywhere else you'd want to use an SVG (e.g. embedded in a PDF) My workflow is exporting to PDF and then just embedding that inside the larger PDF. Works fine?

Yes but that requires an extra step and we're also using the SVGs with Asciidoc which can generate HTML too. I don't think it even supports PDF images. We'd basically have to do what Draw.io did - export to PDF (very slowly), then covert it to SVG with Inkscape. Gross.

Re: Figma Slides

#120

Post by aikinai » Thu, Jun 27, 2024, 6:38 AM UTC

ux-app wrote: post #106

aikinai wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

PowerPoint I believe you (or at least don’t know enough myself to argue). But for Slides, there’s no way. How, for example, would you put an outline around text?

Yep, it's the outline around text that won you the client.

Or embedded videos, or non-trivial animations, or non-Google fonts, or transparent strokes, or vector shapes (excluding the workaround I shared above). Sure, you can win clients without any of that stuff. Why do you need anything more than basic text and maybe some pictures?

But there are reasons people and companies strive for more polish and professionalism. There's a reason even Google uses Keynote for the I/O keynote, even though you can technically show the same information in Slides.