Keynote.app

[der Kopf]

I suppose there is a, fairly small yet powerful, first legion of Keynote users out there. About 24 hours now since it was introduced. Are there first reactions already? Is it really as delicious on your mac as Jobs made it seem to be? I'm wondering especially how those special, Powerpoint-obliterating, effects hold up on older (read, pre-Quartz Extreme) Macs and laptops alike. Probably, the non-Quartz-Extremist macs outnumber the enabled ones, especially since 2002 still saw non-QE macs sold as new top-end macs (well, the iBooks at least, I'm typing on one of these).

Also, how is the compatibility in reality? If you save, for instance, one of those fancy cube-transitions into a PowerPoint file, what does Powerpoint do with that transition?

[fishdoc]

I have wondered the same - I would be tempted to buy it, but with no demo available to test speed, functionality (no error bars on charts? that would ruin it as an app for sciences), etc, I cannot justify the cost.

I really wish they would make a demo available.

Fish

[Brad]

It may not be a perfect solution, but I'm sure that Apple will let you try out the full Keynate app for as long as you want in the Apple Stores.

[fishdoc]

[quote]Originally posted by Brad:
<strong>It may not be a perfect solution, but I'm sure that Apple will let you try out the full Keynate app for as long as you want in the Apple Stores.</strong><hr></blockquote>

Good point - thanks Brad. There are no stores near me, but hopefully our campus computer store will get some, or I can try it out on my next trip to so cal.

fish

[der Kopf]

Well, I played around with a copy for a bit, and I have to say, the speed is more than reasonable on this almost one year old iBook 600 (14 inch). Also with the 3D cube effect. AND: exporting to powerpoint works amazingly well. I did a very simple 'blackboard' presentation like Steve did, and it looks the same in Powerpoint, except for the transitions. Instead of a rotating cube, you get the typical 2D slide-over effect that seems to be the Powerpoint standard.

This is not bad. However, apart from the very yummy themes and transitions, the app doesn't seem to have nearly as many options as Powerpoint. I might be wrong though. Time, and hopefully a bunch of other, hardcore, presentationists will tell.

That's my first reaction. Anybody else care to join in?

[Scott]

Powerpoint (or as I like to call it powerpointless and powerlesspoint) has the worst ****ing drawing tools ever in the history of drawing shit on a computer.

There's no way Apple did worse.


BTW I like to put lots of diagrams in my PP presentations.

[Kickaha]

Agreed, PP's drawing tools are lousy. Now, does Keynote *have* any? Doesn't appear to... which means you need to use another app. Bleah. iDraw, anyone? :)

[der Kopf]

Well, there doesn't appear to be a freeform drawing option, but I might be wrong. Also, I get the impression the folks over at Apple looked very intently on PowerPoint's solutions when they were designing their drawing tools. Everything is in about the same place where you would look for it in PowerPoint.

So, Keynote already looks better still, because the drawing tools ARE easier to use (more intuitive, less 'mind-of-their-own'). Less shapes though.

Anyhow, although I'm a heavy fan of Apple, I would be surprised to find that this 1.0 release would surpass the years of work poured into Powerpoint (especially since Apple's 1.0 releases are often public beta's in disguise).

I have no doubt that this is a PowerPoint killer in the making though.

[jaske]

Here's the first review I've been able to find (from Versiontracker):

"I bought and installed a copy of this software. Absolutely exceptional! I'm by no means an expert at creating presentations, but I just created one that totally blew everyone away. It's easy to use, has features that I can't even begin to guess at, and it *looks* absolutely incredible. This is really much better than I ever expected of presentation software from Apple (let alone a 1.0 version). Complaints? Only one: Feels sluggish at times, especially when entering in large-font text (obviously because of the anti-aliasing.)"

I will be going to an Apple store to possibly buy a copy this weekend, and if so I will post my review (I'm going to follow Brad's advice an review it at the store). I had to use PowerPoint for countless hours the past week, and I absolutely hated it . . . absolutely the worst component of Office for Mac. I hope the app is as promising as it looked.

[Kickaha]

Excellent news on the basic drawing tools! Of course, after I posted that I realized that I've been using OmniGraffle even with PowerPoint, so it's rather moot anyway.

[Scott]

[quote]Originally posted by Kickaha:
<strong>Agreed, PP's drawing tools are lousy. Now, does Keynote *have* any? Doesn't appear to... which means you need to use another app. Bleah. iDraw, anyone? :) </strong><hr></blockquote>

Oh! :eek: I think that could be the only way Apple could do worse. I, may, stand corrected.

[appletothecore]

Got K today. Am very impressed. The app seems (early take) to have a smoothness PP is lacking -- an elegance. More later.
ATTC

[nosey]

It just struck me why Keynote feels so familiar.

It is very similar to the booklet mode of iPhoto. Which brings me to the question of how long it will take Apple to make the book ceation a part of Keynote, and allow more iPhoto booklet layout functions within Keynote...

I mean yes, it is nice to be able to generate the books in iPhoto. But wouldn't it be real neat to be able to generate books with similar characteristics as the Keynote displays? Already I am picturing a lot of families making slide shows in Keynote of things they would normally have done in iPhoto.

Now, if only they had a calendar generator for Keynote, like Photosoap did all those years ago... In fact, the more I think about this, the more it feels like the different photo albums Photosoap allowed you to create.

Is this just wishful thinking, or will Apple include these different themes as plugins within iPhoto?

Hmmm...

[physguy]

I posted in another thread but this seems to be the active one.

I've played with it for a little while and think, overall, its great. Much easier to understand, especially 'Themes/Master Slides. All of the interface in much more intuitive to me and the direct integration of Tables and Charts is Great. Using the MS model on the Mac for these was painful and slow to say the least.

BUT there is a major missing feature, especially for the education/training uses - Actions. I can't find a way to create a button and assign an action to it. If I've missed this please tell me how to do it.

How are other people finding this as a PP replacement?

[ 01-10-2003: Message edited by: physguy ]</p>

[serrano]

There's a very good Keynote <a href="http://arstechnica.infopop.net/OpenTopic/page?a=tpc&s=50009562&f=8300945231&m=5240924545" target="_blank">thread</a> over at ars.

[Paul]

[quote]Originally posted by nosey:
<strong>It is very similar to the booklet mode of iPhoto. Which brings me to the question of how long it will take Apple to make the book ceation a part of Keynote, and allow more iPhoto booklet layout functions within Keynote...</strong><hr></blockquote>

this is a great idea, imagine giving a business presentation with a book of the presentation for each one of the audience members (no more then 10 or 12)

not only do you make a better presentation, but everyone who got to keep the book would know it was from apple........... :)

[nosey]

That certainly would be an interesting idea.

But I read somewhere that you can make your own themes for Keynote...

I only hope they have streamlined that function for iPhoto as well...

[Scott]

[quote]Originally posted by physguy:
<strong>...

BUT there is a major missing feature, especially for the education/training uses - Actions. I can't find a way to create a button and assign an action to it. If I've missed this please tell me how to do it.

...</strong><hr></blockquote>

Sounds like a job for AppleScript.


Hey, how long before Keynote exports to iDVD? :D

[Defiant]

it does already.

[m01ety]

On this here pre-QUE iMac 500 w/ 640 MB, some of the 3D effects are stuttery... Framerate seems to sux0r majorly, especially when you choose the effects to be slow rather than fast...

Other than that, pretty decent. I'd like to see how it looks by Version 2.0, however. :)

[bunge]

Action buttons? How about wrapping the Hypercard engine inside the Keynote application?

(runs and ducks out of the way)

[Horned_Frog]

What do ya'll think about future upgrades? Will the jump tp keynote "2.0" be a paid upgrade? I aks becasue, at the moment, I don't *need* keynote, but it really looks like an app I should learn to use and am sure (in fact know), in the near future I will need this (I have PowerPoint X, but I would rather use Apple software).
I guess what I am asking, is this an iDVD type app (read: huge) or something where a "major" upgrade like a jump to v. 2.0 would only be like a 30-50 mb download?

[thegelding]

does it play movie and avi files?? i almost always have moving pictures in my presentations, usually avi files or QT files of ultrasound images...usually large files...3 secs of digital real time imaging is usually 10mb or so....with pp i can loop the image to play over and over as i point out or explain something in the image...can keynote do this?? if so, bye bye pp....g

[thegelding]

will there be a demo...i would love to play with keynote, even if apple did a one day license....g

[nosey]

Regarding Actions...

If you export the whole presentation as a PDF file, and import the PDF file into Adobe Acrobat (not reader, but the whole Acrobat program) I believe you can insert buttons and the rest of interactivity.

Not very many people use PDF to its fullest potential with Acrobat.

And hey... you don't have to have a mac to be able to see the presentation.

[Nevyn]

[quote]Originally posted by Horned_Frog:
<strong>I guess what I am asking, is this an iDVD type app (read: huge) or something where a "major" upgrade like a jump to v. 2.0 would only be like a 30-50 mb download?</strong><hr></blockquote>

iDVD is a for-pay thing due to MPEG/DVD content creation licenses. (You get this free if you buy hardware, but you have to pay a separate license if the software isn't bundled with hardware).

In any case, it's a $99 -&gt; yes. I'd expect an upgrade price of $40 or so for 2.0 on disk.

[neutrino23]

[quote]Originally posted by thegelding:
<strong>does it play movie and avi files?? </strong><hr></blockquote>

It will play QT movies.

The QT inspector lets you
-select a poster frame
-select
play once
loop
loop back and forth

The build inspector lets you control how the movie appears. For example, you can have it scale up like a window appearing out of the dock. You can have this occur automatically or following a mouse click. In other words, the movie can play automatically when the slide appears or you can trigger the movie with a mouse click.

[ast3r3x]

...give MS a month or two to add the transitions that Keynote has ;)

[Scott]

I played with Keynote at an Apple Store. I'm disapointed to say the least. The drawing tools in PowerPoint drive me crazy, they suck. Keynote solved that by leaving them out. For me Keynote is useless.

[JLL]

[quote]Originally posted by Scott:
<strong>I played with Keynote at an Apple Store. I'm disapointed to say the least. The drawing tools in PowerPoint drive me crazy, they suck. Keynote solved that by leaving them out. For me Keynote is useless.</strong><hr></blockquote>

What drawing tools do you need?

"You can draw basic rectangles, ellipses, triangles, arrows, and lines directly in Keynote."

Not complete perhaps, but I wouldn't calling that leaving them out.

[Stratosfear]

I haven't tested Keynote yet, but I can say that PowerPoint sucks! I have to do PowerPoint slides at work as many people have to do. Maybe PowerPoint has more features than in Keynote, but do we really need those all features? Most of the time with PowerPoint I spend searching right tool to do simple things what I want.

I need simple & fast tool for good looking simple slides and Keynote might be right solution.

[appletothecore]

Has anyone set up a website yet to serve as a community portal type site for those who wish to perfect their "Keynote" use? A place to grab themes and trade tips? I haven't spotted one yet.
ATTC

[ 01-12-2003: Message edited by: appletothecore ]</p>

[nebcon65]

As far as I'm concerned drawing tools are non issue with Keynote. Micorsoft doesn't have an application (except for Visio and that was purchased) that has decent drawing tools. Appleworks isn't bad for drawing simple stuff but there are plenty of good freeware, shareware and commercial drawing apps that would be better to use. Adding too many drawing tools to a presentation app just makes for bloat. Some classes of things you can do with a computer need dedicated software.

For instance Keynote could have video editing as well since it can use video in it's content just as it can drawings but we have iMovie, Final Cut Express or Final Cut Pro for that.

Most presentations (and Director, Flash and web html projects) start with the raw componants (graphics, sound, etc.) and then are completed in the authoring app. As powerful as some of the tools are in Flash and Director (which I use every day) are, sometimes it's better to use Freehand or Photoshop instead. I think that will always be the case no matter how many revisions those apps go through.

[nosey]

What would be real interesting is if Keynot could export the presentation as a mouse-clickable flash movie, so anyone with the flash player could play it.

Hmmm...

[thegelding]

apple, where is the one day, or one week, demo....i want to play!!! dang, i guess i could just buy the damn thing, but i like to see the new app somewhere first...g

[bradbower]

thegelding, I got my demo. :D It's kinda large, 132MB.

Keynote is kinda fun, but I have nothing to do with it. Plus, you need a good amount of VRAM for it to be anything other than painful. 8MB VRAM minimum, in fact. I'm on an old iMac, so..

[nosey]

Some keynote manuals for you all to look at, in PDF format, are here:

<a href="http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=51960&SaveKCWindowURL=http%3A%2F%2Fkbase.info.apple.com% 2Fcgi-bin%2FWebObjects%2Fkbase.woa%2Fwa%2FSaveKCToHomePa ge&searchMode=Assisted&kbhost=kbase.info.apple.com&showButton=false&randomValue=100&showSurvey=false&sessionID=anonymous%7C161750449" target="_blank">manuals from Apple Support</a>

[thegelding]

bradbower...i want my large demo...damnit...and i'm on an iMac LCD so i figure it should run fine here....g

[kcmac]

During the keynote, steve was enlarging text very easily. Was he doing this with key commands, a sliding text enlarger (ala Okito composer/Nisus) or was it with the text format window?

[BuonRotto]

[quote]Originally posted by kcmac:
<strong>During the keynote, steve was enlarging text very easily. Was he doing this with key commands, a sliding text enlarger (ala Okito composer/Nisus) or was it with the text format window?</strong><hr></blockquote>

That was with the standard font panel in Cocoa apps. The font panel has an optional slider on the right side. He was using that in the demo.

[kcmac]

So it is the same font panel as used in Text Edit?

I really like the slider like in Okito composer better. You can make it any size. Don't have to click on font sizes.

Or am I missing something?

[kcmac]

Oops. Just found out something new. Did not know that under options in the font panel you can activate the sliding panel.

2 years with X. Can't believe I didn't know that. :rolleyes:

[Mr. Macintosh]

[quote]Originally posted by kcmac:
<strong>Oops. Just found out something new. Did not know that under options in the font panel you can activate the sliding panel.

2 years with X. Can't believe I didn't know that. :rolleyes: </strong><hr></blockquote>

Wait, how do I slide re-size the text within Keynote?

[nosey]

Put the cursor in the text, presse ctrl-a (or select all, or set the cursor at one end and drag to the other) and then use the slider.

Just like you would in any other text document.

[BuonRotto]

[quote]Originally posted by Mr. Macintosh:
<strong>

Wait, how do I slide re-size the text within Keynote?</strong><hr></blockquote>

In the fonts panel (command-t I think), choose Edit Sizes from the pop-up at the bottom of the panel. choose whether you want a fixed list, a slider or list & slider. Try out a few things in those pop-up choices too.

[Brad]

[quote]Originally posted by Mr. Macintosh:
<strong>Wait, how do I slide re-size the text within Keynote?</strong><hr></blockquote>Simple.

Select this menu:

http://www4.ncsu.edu/~bwsmith/images/Keynote-FontEditSizes.jpg

edit: Bah! BuonRotto beat me to it.

[ 01-12-2003: Message edited by: Brad ]</p>

[Mr. Macintosh]

<a href="http://forums.appleinsider.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=3&t=002135" target="_blank">http://forums.appleinsider.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=3&t=002135</a>

[kcmac]

Does Keynote have a slide show loop feature? Kiosk mode, etc.

That is one feature that is nice in pp. Can just let the show repeat itself over and over?

[kcmac]

Wow!

Just got back from a friends place. He has keynote! Didn't get to use it long, will hopefully go back over tonite!

It is really incredible. During the Keynote, Steve kept saying, look at the textures, look at the text. I know why now. They look spectacular. The themes are nice. My favorite is Letterpress.

The cross hair feature to line up pictures and text is something that makes it very simple to layout the page. It is extremely easy to line up and resize multiple pictures and text boxes on the same slide by just clicking and dragging. You can look at the pixels (width, height) of each image or box as you do it so that you can be extremely precise.

We were using a 400 DVSE imac and it was fairly robust. The program is however, very graphics intense and we froze the machine several times during playback. I would have to believe that better video chips would help out as well as a faster processor and a G4.

The inspector makes very quick work of managing everything about each slide.

Converting to PDF is very good. They are very large. A simple slide or two takes it to over 3MB.

He showed me a PP he had imported. It did very well. He had a couple of weird transitions that didn't come through so it is not perfect.

Importing images is different than in PP. In PP, you go to Insert on the menubar. In Keynote, you have to drag and drop the images you want into the slide. This is simple enough since Keynote does not require the whole screen to work and you can just keep your pictures folder open.

The transitions are very smooth on the G3. They are beautiful. My favorite is the flip.

Text is also way ahead of PP. Being able to adjust to any size and use the slider bar feature is nice.

I think it is quite possible to think of Keynote as also being a good page layout program.

I hope I can talk my boss into springing for this app. I also hope that the program to reduce the size of PDF's works as it is easy to imagine that a 30 slide presentation or so will be very large.

[Scott]

[quote]Originally posted by JLL:
<strong>

What drawing tools do you need?

"You can draw basic rectangles, ellipses, triangles, arrows, and lines directly in Keynote."

Not complete perhaps, but I wouldn't calling that leaving them out.</strong><hr></blockquote>

From my use they seemed very lacking.

[nosey]

I have been trying to make a simple theme, but I have to run for a while.

If anyone wants to play with it, you should find it here:

<a href="http://members.shaw.ca/nosemonger/Urban.kth.sit" target="_blank">http://members.shaw.ca/nosemonger/Urban.kth.sit</a>

It is around 7M... I haven't had time to tweak the size down any.

[ 01-12-2003: Message edited by: nosey ]</p>

[Kickaha]

[quote]Originally posted by Scott:
<strong>

From my use they seemed very lacking.</strong><hr></blockquote>

Then use OmniGraffle. Or something else. Robust image import is a big plus for Keynote, and let's you use the external tool that is *just* right for your task instead of trying to fulfill everyone's needs inadequately (ala PowerPoint).

I use OG because for my type of diagramming it just kicks donkey.

[piwozniak]

Just got it!

very easy to use.
great graphics, transparency kicks a$$,
but few things are missing for me:
1. Time controll,
2. You can't rotate text.

in overal, very simple great looking app.
l8tr all

[appletothecore]

Rotate text by throwing it onto the canvas and click through until tiny box-shapes show up on left and right sides of the text box. Go to Inspector and click on the third panel (the one with a ruler on it). Rotate the keen little nob near the bottom of the box and you can rotate your text just fine.
ATTC

[ 01-13-2003: Message edited by: appletothecore ]</p>

[kcmac]

You can also do it by pressing the command key and clicking on your mouse on the sides of the text box.

[piwozniak]

Hey,

You are correct, i tried to rotate one of these 'pre-defined' text boxes (from master slides). And guess what, you can't rotate them, but you can rotate user-created text box.

Thanks

[appletothecore]

Keynote serves as a nifty quasi-drawing app! I've been patching together slidesand busting them out as pdf exports and dropping them into Word docs. It gets better and better. The opacity doesn't come across though as far as I can tell. This pummels PP all silly.
ATTC

[ 01-16-2003: Message edited by: appletothecore ]</p>

[mattscape]

well i think keynote is pretty cool
i used to make slide with latex
now its much easier

but i've got a few things:

- the themes are stylish but not my way for presentation. i like bright and white mac-like styles
are there already some on the net ?

- i would like to include an text and image on every slide.
i couldn't get there. apply to master slide didn't work.

- i woul like to get some other information on every slide. like page number or section, subsection number etc

- is the dtd of the xml format published yet ?
then you could write some utils on your own.

matt

[Xool]

[quote]Originally posted by Kickaha:
<strong>

Then use OmniGraffle. Or something else. Robust image import is a big plus for Keynote, and let's you use the external tool that is *just* right for your task instead of trying to fulfill everyone's needs inadequately (ala PowerPoint).

I use OG because for my type of diagramming it just kicks donkey.</strong><hr></blockquote>

Amen brotha! I haven't tried importing between apps like this yet...

[Eugene]

[quote]Originally posted by Xool:
<strong>

Amen brotha! I haven't tried importing between apps like this yet...</strong><hr></blockquote>

It's as easy as copying and pasting from OmniGraffle to Keynote. Transparency is preserved in the process too.

[Chris Cuilla]

You know what is begging for integration?

OmniOutliner and Keynote!

The burden is probably on Omni, but with the (supposedly open, XML-based) file format of Keynote, a new "export" option from OmniOutliner to Keynote cannot be far off.

Cooler still would be a drag and drop solution (i.e., I cab drag an OmniOutliner document into Keynote and it become a presentation (or is added to the current presentation). This seems like the least likely scenario of the two.

[ 01-21-2003: Message edited by: Chris Cuilla ]</p>

[nosey]

I wouldn't mind seeing a bit of applescripting thrown in for the creation of presentations and themes. Not to mention batch resizing included photos and sounds which can carry across a series of slides (instead of one sound per slide)

All interesting things I don't think Apple thought of when Steve asked them to cobble it together.

[jaske]

My experience has been fine, but read <a href="http://www.pcpro.co.uk/?http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/news_story.php?id=37272" target="_blank">HERE.</a>

[Scott]

[quote]Originally posted by jaske:
<strong>My experience has been fine, but read <a href="http://www.pcpro.co.uk/?http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/news_story.php?id=37272" target="_blank">HERE.</a></strong><hr></blockquote>

ouch! :eek: $100 for this alpha release:no:

[nosey]

And how much did you pay for the Public Beta of OS10?

Or the official OS10 release?

Or 10.2?

Don't get me wrong, I sincerely wish the first offering of presentation software from Apple had been $50. $50CDN...

I mean, noone in the US would complain about having to spend $30 for the software, would they?

In its current state, I would have preferred it to be a free download to ascertain what people were going to look for when it comes to presentations. There are so many different kinds of users.

There are those who are of the 'Bare Basics" who put minimal text on screen and flesh ou the presentation with running dialogue (Steve Jobs)

There are those who prefer that the slides incorporate everything about the subject so they just have to click the slides and bask in the appreciation of their (usually comatose) audience (Chemistry & physics instructors, Windows managers hoping for the "make it as boring as possible so they will agree to anything so they can leave" variety)

And then there are those who want to make clickable training videos without having to learn flash or acrobat.

Keynote will never replace the unsprechliken (sp?) alternative due to the severe bloat that other product has undergone. It may, hoever, become an integral part of several packages which offer the means to replace it...

eventually.

[bunge]

No more free applications from Apple. Free with a computer is good. Free overall just makes people expect it for a lifetime. Apple needs new revenue streams and software is where it's at.

[torifile]

[quote]originally posted by nosey<strong>
I mean, noone in the US would complain about having to spend $30 for the software, would they?</strong><hr></blockquote>

I guess you missed it when apple purportedly bought soundjam and started giving it away with itunes? or ical's greeting? or mail's warm welcome? or iphoto's ovation? get the point? people ALWAYS complain about apple software, even if it's free. we're extremely spoiled computer users, to be sure...

[appletothecore]

I have used it a fair bit since purchase. Not one crash. The only observation I can make that is negative in connection with the comments on the other board -- it does make fairly large PDF file saves.

I'm very pleased with Keynote and anticipating a stronger and stronger product as it matures. If I didn't know any better I would think some are out there pulling our legs and pitching FUD. By no means would I suggest for a moment that we are beta testing. The product is solid.

Besides. Can anyone recall an occasion where SJs presentation froze or crashed? If it was that rickety he wouldn't use it, you can be sure of that.

[ 01-22-2003: Message edited by: appletothecore ]</p>

[stupider...likeafox]

[quote]Originally posted by appletothecore:
<strong>The only observation I can make that is negative in connection with the comments on the other board -- it does make fairly large PDF file saves.</strong><hr></blockquote>

Is this not because Powerpoint uses famously shitty amounts of Jpeg compression?

On another note, how the hell can Keynote be causing kernel panics. What on earth can it possibly be doing? Hardware drivers I can understand, presentation software causing panics makes no sense.

Very bad!

[Scott]

[quote]Originally posted by bunge:
<strong>No more free applications from Apple. Free with a computer is good. Free overall just makes people expect it for a lifetime. Apple needs new revenue streams and software is where it's at.</strong><hr></blockquote>

No one's going to pay good money for bad software. Had I bought Keynote and had all those problems I would have demanded a refund.

[Chris Cuilla]

[quote]Originally posted by jaske:
<strong>My experience has been fine, but read <a href="http://www.pcpro.co.uk/?http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/news_story.php?id=37272" target="_blank">HERE.</a></strong><hr></blockquote>

I read this and founf it to be a bit over the top. Having read this board, spoken with may Dad (who has it and is using it), and having bought and used it myself (a LITTLE). I have not seen nor heard fo this level of trouble. Not saying it doesn't exist, just seems very lopsided reporting.

I did have Keynote hang my machine after playing a slide show. Once. But not the "alpha" level of problems mentioned in this article.

[torifile]

[quote]Originally posted by Chris Cuilla:
<strong>You know what is begging for integration?

OmniOutliner and Keynote!

The burden is probably on Omni, but with the (supposedly open, XML-based) file format of Keynote, a new "export" option from OmniOutliner to Keynote cannot be far off.

Cooler still would be a drag and drop solution (i.e., I cab drag an OmniOutliner document into Keynote and it become a presentation (or is added to the current presentation). This seems like the least likely scenario of the two.

[ 01-21-2003: Message edited by: Chris Cuilla ]</strong><hr></blockquote>

Well, you called it. Omnioutliner has been updated and this feature has been added. Good call.

[BuonRotto]

People have reported some seemingly drastic if unusual problems, not only the PC Pro link above, but Apple's own support board seems split between those with great experiences, those who expect more from it (though at version 1, this might not be as valid), and those whose experience has been near catastrophic. I suspect some of the problems are Apple's fault, like the gigantic PDF and PPT output, but others are suspicious, like kernel panics.

Anyway, This is the first time I've really though about this even though it appies to earlier software they made. Apple should consider having a free, if "crippleware" demo version of apps like this one. I suspect the second group I mentioned that's dissapointed with the app's features would be much smaller, or at least less upset if they could take it for a test drive first. I've come to take this for granted with other applications. I didn't even consider Corel Graphics Suite because it didn't have any trial version, not even a thorough overview like Keynote at least has. If there's one great thing about having a developer community that mostly exists online, it's that trialware is frequent and in general the shareware community keeps its promises on both ends. I think this attitude, or expectation from users is starting to sink into some larger developers. That probably means Apple will do this sometime after Quark adopts this policy, which is to say when hell freezes over. :D

[nosey]

[quote]Originally posted by BuonRotto:
<strong>... which is to say when hell freezes over. :D </strong><hr></blockquote>

Well, it's pretty cold up here in Edmonton, and it's not too far from being a hellish place (I work less than two miles from several dozen refineries... Th fog and flames from there add to the feeling of Lucifer-land.)

Maybe we will see a trial version sometime soon...

[curiousuburb]

a trial version would help some people

a 1.0.2 revision to downsample for &lt;8MB VRAM would allow thousands of Pismo, Ti Rev A, and early iBook users to shift from angry refund-seeker mode to contented camper status.

seems to lack full QT support, of all ironies
(less .swf support than other QT apps, for example)

bug fixes and a time bombed demo version, please

[nosey]

I had a brain fart (pardon me) not too long ago about the various problems...

Apple had 10.2.4 on several systems at Macworld, right?

Could they have tested the program with only that system?

Could the (rumored) next version of he system (rumored to be out by the end of the month) include several fixes for Keynote?

I mean, if it is a driver problem, that would be the best time to release a patch, wouldn't it?

[709]

Don't know if anyone else has tried this, but I created a QT movie of a 360 degree spinning chair with alpha channel and Keynote automatically keyed it over my background. All the built-in transitions (even the bounce) worked flawlessly. That alone gives me a big boner for this app.

[Chris Cuilla]

[quote]Originally posted by torifile:
<strong>

Well, you called it. Omnioutliner has been updated and this feature has been added. Good call.</strong><hr></blockquote>

Where did you see this? I just went up to <a href="http://www.omnigroup.com/" target="_blank">http://www.omnigroup.com/</a> and found nothing new. Version 2.1.1 (which has been around for a while).

[torifile]

[quote]Originally posted by Chris Cuilla:
<strong>

Where did you see this? I just went up to <a href="http://www.omnigroup.com/" target="_blank">http://www.omnigroup.com/</a> and found nothing new. Version 2.1.1 (which has been around for a while).</strong><hr></blockquote>

I saw it on versiontracker. <a href="http://versiontracker.com/moreinfo.fcgi?id=8610&db=mac" target="_blank">here.</a> It's only a beta of 2.2, but they are definitely incorporating it.

[jaske]

More bad <a href="http://news.com.com/2100-1040-981729.html?tag=fd_top" target="_blank">press.</a>

I've got a major presentation to edit next week . . . I guess PowerPoint is off of life support.

[ 01-23-2003: Message edited by: jaske ]</p>

[nosey]

[quote]Originally posted by jaske:
<strong>More bad <a href="http://news.com.com/2100-1040-981729.html?tag=fd_top" target="_blank">press.</a>

I've got a major presentation to edit next week . . . I guess PowerPoint is off of life support.
</strong><hr></blockquote>

There may be an issue with running Keynote with Classic running in the background. It may affect the minimum requirements for VRAM.

The reporting done so far (and I have read only three articles) has been full of poor quotes from many days ago, some of which have been resolved.

If you are considering a major presentation next week, and have a copy of Keynote, then try it first. Don't forget to make a Quicktime movie of it to have on hand 'just in case' and by all means save it to Powerpoint as a final backup.

Just because some reporter surfed a website which had complaints and reported it is no reason to throw your hands up in the air and run away screaming.

If you have it. Try it. Form your own opinion. For ever complainer on the Apple site there are more people who have been using it without a hitch.

[Eugene]

I haven't had a single problem in Keynote, but I've only used it a half dozen or so times. I don't run Classic.

[jaske]

"Apple has identified a bug in the driver software for certain ATI graphics chips which can affect a small number of systems when used with Keynote," the company said. "Apple is working on an updated driver which should be available to customers shortly."

The <a href="http://news.com.com/2100-1040-981953.html?tag=fd_top" target="_blank">story</a> does not list which chips. As far as I can tell, the ATI Mobility Radeon 7500 in the iBook 800 has no problems.

[nosey]

Thanks jaske. I will forward it to the Keynote Discussion on Apple's website.