myDSL Extensions (deprecated) :: myDSL Wishlist

Mikshaw -

I actually found magicpoint in the debian unstable repository under mgp!

I was excited and apt-get'd it. Well, I have it on my desktop but cannot figure out, for the life of me, how to start the darn thing!  

I did a whereis mgp and received the locations. When I try to run each one, I just get a list of switches. I looked through the docs but can't find anything about the executable.

This is very embarassing but I need help. Can anyone help me start the darn program?! Thanks

Chris

If you have installed it through apt-get you should go to /usr/share/doc. Here there is a directory called mgp, and that is the key. It contains README-files, a directory with examples, etc. I copied the entire mgp-directory to my /home/user area, for easier access. If you want to start the program, you go the the /mgp/examples folder. There you find several example-slideshows. You start one of them by typing 'mgp sample.mgp' in a prompt, and the slideshow called sample.mgp starts displaying in fullscreen mode. You can move forward and backward by using the arrow-keys, but you can also use space key, vi-keys (j-k...etc.). It is all explained in the slideshows. It is really a very powerful tool. The drawback is that you need to create the files (or change the files) in a text editor, but to me that seems like more of an advantage  
What you can do is to make a copy of the /examples folder and start creating your own versions of the slides in a text editor. The slideshows are rather self-explanatory really, and it is really amazing what you can actually do with this application.
If you don't want to start it in fullscreen mode, there are several options, like 'mgp -g 800x600 sample.mgp' should start it in a 800x600 window for instance.
Good luck exploring a wonderful presentation app!!! (I really hope to see a .dsl version of it soon, as it would be great to have access to this tool from a live-cd also. It is already in Knoppix I think, but dsl is so much better in many ways, so we should have it as an extension!)

-r