Within the Unity classroom, Presenter is used to share images and/or videos with the participants of a Real Time Session presentation.
You may also find links to Presenter slideshows in the Real Time Session transcripts, course library and course message boards. These Presener slideshows are made available for the course participants to view on their own time.
The intent of this document is to describe Presenter as it appears to the participants within a Unity classroom.
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Presenter Within Unity
First, let's start of with some definitions.
A slideshow is a collection of slides.
A slide can be an image, animation, or a video.
At the start of a Real Time Session, a moderator or instructor will send a slideshow to all of the participants in the Unity classroom. Each participant is sent a copy of the slideshow displayed in their private Presenter window.
A participant can navigate through the Presenter slideshow and view any of the slides contained within that slideshow on their own. However, when the instructor/moderator sends a slide from the slideshow to the class, the participant's Presenter window will be forced to display the specified slide. This slide is referred to as the Class Slide.
If you enter the session after its start or reenter the Unity classroom after leaving it, the Presenter window will be automatically available and the current Class Slide will be displayed.
You can minimize the Presenter window (convert the window to an icon on the Unity tool bar) by using the small "-" (minimize button) on the right end of the Presenter title bar, but you cannot close it.
When minimized, a small icon followed by the word PRESENTER will appear on the Unity tool bar.
Click on the word PRESENTER on the Unity tool bar and the Presenter window will be restored.
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Captions On/Off
Clicking CAPTIONS ON will open the caption display pane within the Presenter window.
Clicking CAPTIONS OFF will close the captions pane so they are not displayed in the Presenter window.
If a caption is long, there will be a scroll bar available on the far right of the caption so you can read its full text.
The slide caption will also be displayed in the Conference Room text window when the slide is sent to the participants.
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Basic Slideshow Navigation
During the Real Time Session, each slide is sent to each participant's Presenter window by an instructor or a moderator at the time it is to be discussed.
Let's look at the various ways provided by Presenter to navigate through a slideshow on your own.
You can change the slide displayed in Presenter by clicking on the
- First (|<)
- Prev (<)
- Next (>)
- Last (>|)
buttons at the bottom of the Presenter window.
If you select the Auto Advance (>>) button, the slides will be displayed one after the other automatically until the end of the slideshow is reached or you select the Auto Advance (>>) button a second time.
When you resize the Presenter window very small, the labels are removed; and you will only see the slide navigation buttons.
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Slide Menu
A pull-down slide menu, accessed from the down arrowhead on the right side of the slide title bar, displays the list of slides in the slideshow. Each entry in the slide menu displays the slide number and title.
- A green check will be displayed in front of the menu item for each slide that has been sent to the participants in the Unity classroom.
- The slide currently displayed in the your Presenter window will be marked on the menu with an orange circle.
- If that slide has been sent to the participants by the instructor/moderator, a green check will also appear on the circle.
- If a slide has a caption, there will be a capital "T" displayed on the far right of the slide entry in the slide menu.
When needed, the slide menu will have a scroll bar.
After you select the slide to view or if you move the cursor off the slide menu, the slide menu goes away.
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Presenter Menu
PRESENTER also has a command menu named Menu. It is located on the lower right portion of your PRESENTER window.
The Presenter Menu has the following entries:
These will be described in later sections of this document.
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Zoom In, Navigator On
When the image provided for the Presenter slide is much larger than the Presenter stage (display area), you will find an entry entitled Zoom In within the Presenter Menu.
Selecting Zoom In will enlarge the image displayed. A set of scroll bars are provided with the enlarged image so you can manipulate the portion of the image that is visible on the Presenter stage.
Once you have zoomed in on an slide image, the Presenter Menu will display a new entry called Navigator On.
Navigator On
Another way to manipulate the displayed area in an enlarged image is to use the navigator pane. Select Navigator On from the Presenter Menu to open the navigator pane.
The Menu entry Navigator On will change to Navigator Off.
The navigation pane consists of a miniaturized version of the image with a small frame inside it representing the Presenter stage.
The area on the miniaturized image enclosed by the frame within the navigator pane represents the portion of the larger image that is displayed on the Presenter stage.
Click and drag the frame in the miniature image, and the larger image on the Presenter stage will be moved to match the framed area in the miniature image.
You can close the Navigator pane by:
- Selecting the large red "X" on the top right corner of the Navigator pane or
- selecting Navigator Off from the Presenter Menu or
- repeatedly selecting Zoom Out from the Presenter Menu until the image returns to its smallest size.
The Zoom In/Out and Navigator On/Off features are not available for animated slides, videos, or any image file that fits within the Presenter stage when displayed at its largest size.
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Adjust Image Controls
PRESENTER provides controls for modifying the appearance of a slide image. These modifications are temporary and will ONLY affect the image in your PRESENTER window.
Access the Image Adjustments panel by selecting Adjust Image from the Presenter Menu.
The controls in the Image Adjustments panel allows you to make adjustments to the slide image such as modifying the contrast, modifying the brightness, modifying the color saturation, convert the image to greyscale, and inverting the colors on the image.
Select the Show Advanced Controls link from the bottom of the Image Adjustments panel to access the complete set of image modification controls.
The Advanced Controls provide image controls for adjusting the red/green/blue color values of the image, the image sharpness, and edge definition.
The image will revert to its original appearance when you select the Reset link located at the bottom of the Image Adjustments panel or when you navigate away from the slide.
To close the Image Adjustments panel, select the red "X" in the upper right corner of the panel.
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Slide Menus - Filmstrip, Title, Gallery, and Thumbnails
The Filmstrip Sidebar, Title Sidebar, Gallery, and Thumbnails Menu entries each provide a different view of the slide menu.
Filmstrip Sidebar
Selecting Filmstrip Sidebar from the Presenter Menu will display the slides as a single list of thumbnails, with the currently selected slide displayed on the right, almost full sized.
The Menu entry Filmstrip Sidebar will change to Filemstrip Sidebar Off.
To return to the normal slide display, select Filmstrip Sidebar Off from the PRESENTER Menu.
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Title Sidebar
Selecting Title Sidebar from the PRESENTER Menu will display the list of slide titles and a thumbnail view of the currently selected slide to the right of the title list.
The Menu entry Title Sidebar will change to Title Sidebar Off.
To return to the normal slide display, select Title Sidebar Off from the PRESENTER Menu.
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Gallery
Selecting Gallery from the Presenter Menu will display the slides as a scrollable collection of images.
The Menu entry Gallery will change to Gallery Off.
Click on any one of the gallery images to make that the currently displayed slide, returning Presenter to the normal slide display. Selecting Gallery Off from the Presenter Menu will return Presenter to the normal slide display without changing the currently selected slide. Please note that iSpring, SWF, and Video slides are represented by generic icons when the slides are viewed in gallery mode.
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Thumbnails
Selecting Thumbnails from the Presenter Menu will display the slides as a collection of thumbnails. The Menu entry Thumbnails will change to Thumbnails Off.
Click on any one of the thumbnails to make that the currently displayed slide, returning Presenter to the normal slide display.
Selecting Thumbnails Off from the Presenter Menu will return Presenter to the normal slide display without changing the currently selected slide.
Please note that iSpring, SWF, and Video slides are represented by generic icons when the slides are viewed in thumbnail mode.
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Print
Print a single slide by navigating to the slide in Presenter and selecting Print followed by the image size from the Presenter Menu.
Print all the slides in a slideshow by selecting Print followed by Print all from the Presenter Menu. Each slide will print on a separate page.
Please note that animated and video slides are not printable.
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Copy URL
Select Copy URL from the Presenter Menu to copy the slideshow URL to your PC clipboard. You can then paste the slideshow URL to another browser or some other application on your PC.
The URL will, when entered in a browser address field, open a Presenter window with the specified slideshow outside the Unity classroom.
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Add to MyStuff
To bring up your MyVIN console page and save a link to the slideshow, select Add to MyStuff from the Presenter Menu.
This will bring up your MyStuff window with a link to the slideshow. You simply need to select a folder and save it.
Thereafter, if you open the saved slideshow link, it will display the specified slideshow in a Presenter window outside of the Unity classroom.
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Open New Window
To view the currently displayed slideshow outside of Unity, select Open New Window from the Presenter Menu. This is useful when you want to make the image displayed in Presenter larger than the space within the Unity classroom permits.
Don't forget to close the browser window when you are finished with it.
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Class Slide, Return
The slide currently presented by the instructor or moderator for your viewing is referred to as the Class Slide. If you advance or move back to view a different slide, you can select Class Slide from the Presenter Menu to view the slide last sent by the instructor, e.g. the Class Slide.
This will cause the Class Slide Menu entry to display Return.
Selecting Return from the Presenter Menu will return you to the slide you were viewing previously.
Example:
- The instructor sends slide 2, so all the class participants are looking at slide 2. Slide 2 is now referred to as the Class Slide.
- I advance my slideshow to slide 9, so I am no longer looking at the Class Slide.
- To go back to the slide everyone else is looking at, I would select Class Slide from the Presenter Menu.
- Then, if I wanted to go back to slide 9, I could select Return and Presenter would jump back to slide 9.
- If at any time the instructor sends a new slide (such as slide 3), my Presenter window will display the new slide.
- Return from the Presenter Menu, it will jump back to slide 9.
- And selecting Class Slide from the Presenter Menu will now return to the new Class Slide, slide 3.
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Presenter Volume Control
If a slide has a sound track associated with it, then it will display a volume control.
To use the volume control, select the speaker icon so that it displays a sliding volume control. Dragging the handle up the slide bar will increase the volume of the slide soundtrack; dragging it down will decrease the volume.
Please note that the volume control provided within Presenter is subservient to the Unity volume control available under the Unity Options menu.
Adjusting the sound volume or muting all sounds from the OPTIONS > SOUNDS menu will affect the Presenter volume too.
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iSpring Controls
The slideshow provided by your instructor may contain iSpring slides.
During a Real Time Session, the moderator or instructor will advance through the animation steps for you. When viewing these slides on your own, however, you will need to use the step controls provided by Presenter to progress through the animation steps for the slide.
- The Continue button advances the slide to the next animation step.
- The Restart button restarts the slide at the first animation step.
- Please note the text display that shows which animation step is currently being displayed and the number of animation steps in the slide.
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Video Controls
Flash Video (FLV) slides will begin playing immediately after loading into the Presenter window.
The FLV controls are located immediately below the Presenter display area.
- Play/Pause - a toggle button that causes the player to play or pause the video.
- Rewind - causes the video to restart at the beginning.
- Skip backward - causes the player to skip back a short amount of time. Note this only works when the video is playing.
- Skip forward - causes the player to skip forward a short amount of time.
- Skip to video ending - causes the player to skip to and play the last few moments of the video.
- Loop - causes the player to repeatedly play the slice of video bounded by the start and end loop markers.
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