I have been recently using several JS frameworks to produce slideshows and ultimately programmatic videos. Here is my feedback about two frameworks Reveal.js and Eagle.js.
Introduction
As I wrote before, at Faveeo, we are working hard to produce original content from curated articles. One idea, the team had, is to produce videos from written articles, to maximize the reader engagement and produce fresh, easy to catch new materials.
I had to explore solutions to produce programmatically videos and one solution I came up with, is to build attractive slideshows. The slideshows have to be sexy enough to deceive the reader and make him thinking he is watching a video.
With the team, we explored several solutions :
- generate slideshows using JS and record them
- build programmatically videos using ffmpeg and imagemagick ;
- explore the available Saas platform to program our videos
- generates an Adobe Premiere compatible format
Long story made short, all solutions turned as a nightmare but the first one.
I have been using two frameworks to build my slideshows and I retained Eagle.js
Reveal.js
Reveal.js is a cool framework (https://revealjs.com), that allows the user to build its own slideshows using only HTML / CSS an a bit of Javascript. To help the beginner, it exists an online editor available on https://slides.com/.
This article is not a tutorial therefore here is my feedback concerning my use-case :
Ohhh so many examples
Well, Reveal.js is quite popular and it’s easy to find many examples on the web.
WTF : how do we start
Well, it has been my reaction using Reveal.js the first time until I understand that I had to clone a GIT Project to create my first template (eyes rolling one). The second issue I had was, WHERE IS THE CODE, until I discover that a single HTML page contains the whole code of the show.
Plenty of features and great documentation
Yes, Reveal.js has an impressive set of features, autoplay, record, audio etc etc and it’s perfect for most need but MINE.
The documentation is also great and you will find plenty of examples.
Drawback of the solution
Reveal.js has two draw backs : it’s pure vanilla JS and while I have been able to make it friend with Vue.js , it has always been very hacky.
- I could not trigger text animations WHEN a slide appear
- I had to restart the component after my new slides have been generated because I don’t have control on Reveal.js lifecycle
Slideshow code using Reveal.js
Design flaws
Reveal.JS comes with a rather clever system to position your slide items properly and compute their size.
HOWEVER it’s a pure nightmare if you want to produce an absolute design for your slides ie. a element at the bottom, a picture in the left upper corner etc.
I have been struggling a lot for my first video prototype with the CSS choices of Reveal.js and the way we can customize a template.
Eagle.js
Eagle.js is a rather recent JS framework powered by Vue.js allowing the developer to write Slides as Vue components.
I have been interested by this framework since it allows me a native integration of my slides with Vue and an probable easier automatic generation.
Here is my feedback about Eagle.js.
Yeahh Vue..
I have been a big practtionner of Vue.js and to use a library based on it made things really easy. I ported the Reveal.js slideshow to Eagle.js in some hours.
Poor documentation
Yes, the documentation is poor, evenif Zulko has provided several great examples. But all the logic and the dirty things are hidden into the code. The good news ? There is only two small code files.
No feature
The components are de facto working but a huge set of features are missing like the auto play.
CSS Friendly
The framework comes with a theme but everything can be easily overridden.
Easy to extend
I have extended the framework to allow me some tweaks and design choices. (https://github.com/faveeo/eagle.js)
Conclusion
I have retained Eagle.s while the framework has much less features and a poorer documentation, the ease to extend either the design or the features allowed to create better slideshows and videos.
Here are the two examples produced with the frameworks.
For more article about Vue, check here and here.
With Reveal.js
With Eagle.js