Classroom Presenter FAQs

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For the 2.0 release of Classroom Presenter, there is an up-to-date Getting Started Guide. It can answer many of your questions so please check there as well.

1. Can I project directly from the Tablet PC so that Presenter is used on a single machine?

   The advantages of using a single machine are simplified setup and avoidance of networking issues. The simple way to use Presenter on a single machine is just to display the Instructor view. We have created a full screen version of the instructor view with minimal controls to maximize the display area devote to content.

   We have added multimon support to presenter. This means that if presenter is run a machine with two monitors, the second monitor is used for a display view. Assuming that your tablet supports this, you can use the vga output as a second monitor. This allows a single tablet to be used, greatly simplifying the setup. The downside is that this does tether the instructor to the data projector (although with a long projector cord, the instructor can still carry the tablet).

   More details on this are here on our Getting Started with Classroom Presenter page.

2. I am unable to broadcast slides / ink between machines. What is going on?

   Presenter is built on top of multicast communication, which does not guarantee delivery. This means that sometimes the information displayed on the viewer will differ from the information displayed on the presenter. The two types of loss you might observe are slide loss, where some of the broadcast slides don't get through, and ink loss, where occasional ink strokes are dropped.

   • Slide Loss
     The best option is to make sure the slides are small (avoid pictures and backgrounds). Raising the FEC will help (Tools->Properties, select the Network tab, and increase the Forward error correction). Also, selective pages can be rebroadcast (File->Broadcast->Current Slide). If all else fails, slides can be transferred by other means (like a USB key), and then opened on each machine. As long as the files opened on each machine are identical, Classroom Presenter will be able to detect it. Otherwise, go to Tools->Deckmatcher and match the two decks.
   • Ink Loss
     The best thing to do about ink loss is to turn off powersave. Starting in Control Panel and open System. Select the Hardware tab and open Device Manager. Under Network adapters, select the wireless adapter and open it. Under the Advanced tab, select Power Management, uncheck Use default value, and move the slider to Highest.

3. Can I save the ink, or the slide deck with ink on it?

   This functionality is part of Version 2.0. The Getting Started with Classroom Presenter page has more information about saving your slides.

4. What version of PowerPoint is required? Do all machines need to run PowerPoint?

   We have developed and deployed Presenter primarily using PowerPoint XP. We have created a separate version of DeckBuilder which is compatible with PowerPoint 2000. We have created a plug in that allows export of CSD files directly from PowerPoint which only works for PowerPoint XP. We have not tested for compatibility with PowerPoint 2003 yet.

   Information about creating a CSD file and using the PowerPoint plug in can be found here.

   Our approach has been to translate the PowerPoint files into a custom format (CSD), which is essentially a collection of images. This means that only the machine running DeckBuilder actually needs to have PowerPoint installed. In the future, we will be using the Real Time Documents format (RTD) to facilitate interaction with other applications.

5. How do you customize the feedback menus?

   Customized feedback menus can be added in DeckBuilder under the feedback menu. The menus are specified by an XML file. The following example adds a pair of feedback menus: Nasty and Nice.

   <menus>
     <feedback name="Nasty">
       <item color="red">Awful</item>
       <item color="green">Horrible</item>
       <item color="blue">Blehhh!</item>
     </feedback>
     <feedback name="Nice">
       <item>Brilliant</item>
       <item color="orange">Wonderful</item>
      </feedback>
   </menus>
   

6. The name Presenter isn't exactly inspired - can't you come up with anything better?

   This is true - the project picked up the name as a generic description of what the software did. We added "Classroom" to the name to be a little more descriptive and to distinguish it from other products called Presenter. A Google turned up a product called Presenter created by an Australian software company for display of church music. There was also another product called Presenter, but it had a name change . . . to PowerPoint.

7. What does CSD stand for?

   Conferencing Slide Deck. We were tempted to use Learning Slide Deck instead.

8. How can I connect a computer on a wired network to one on a wireless network?

   This runs into the problem that the current networking (Multicast) is not well supported across different networks - the wireless to wired scenario is particularly problematic. There is a partial work around that might work:

   Set up a unicast - point to point connection. This uses a 'hidden feature'.

   • Edit the Presenter Config File
     Locate the file Presenter.exe.config in the installation directory.
     Open the file with Notepad.
     Set the UW.CP.UnicastMenuItem key to true: <add key="UW.CP.UnicastMenuItem" value="true"/>
     Save the file.
     When you open presenter, you should now have Connect->Unicast as an option.
   • Start presenter on both machines and click the item Connect->Unicast
     Machine A enters machine B's address and vice versa
   There are multiple ways to find the IP address - eg, from the command prompt, type ipconfig, or go to network connections in the control panel, and right click on the local area network, and the ip address will be under details.

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