I’ve gushed about the beta of this Mac app a couple of times on Systematic, and it’s finally out for everyone. Deckset is the easiest way to create a slide deck, a la Keynote or Powerpoint, and present it on the big screen.
I’ve played around a lot with converting Markdown to things like Reveal.js, but Deckset makes it simple. You just write in plain text with a little Markdown formatting and presto: presentation. It processes and presents the deck internally, so all you need to do is hook up a projector and hit play.
You can include images, resize them, add effects to them, fill the screen with them (and overlay text) and even display multiple images in the background side by side. It also allows you to include video with HTML5 controls.
When presenting, Deckset shows you the upcoming slides on one display, and the full-screen view of the current slide on the other display. There’s a rehearsal mode, and you can add presenter notes that only you will see. It even displays a small floating preview when you switch to your text editor.
Deckset currently comes with seven themes with a variety of fonts and multiple color variations. I’d love the ability to customize the themes myself, but that’s one of my very few feature requests for this app. The other would be a way to create progressive builds within a slide, but keeping the Markdown syntax simple is a primary goal of this application.
You can literally create a ready-to-go presentation in 5 minutes, if you know what you want to say. If you have time to prepare and add stunning images, video, code blocks (with syntax highlighting), etc., awesome, but if you’re crunched for time it’s also the perfect way to get something on the screen without any hassle.
I’m excited about this one, as you may have gathered. You can see an overview at decksetapp.com, and purchase it on the Mac App Store for $19.99 (introductory price).
