SlideMight: Next Steps

You might wish to use the Example files with SlideMight to generate PowerPoint slides for the Technician or the Amateur Extra exam. Perhaps you wish to generate Technician, General, or Amateur Extra slides using your own PowerPoint theme. Perhaps you wish to use these examples as the basis for creating PowerPoint slides for completely different presentations. Here are some next steps:

Understanding the Pattern File

The pattern file consists of nine slides. Three of these are $FORMAT slides, which affect the final presentation, but do not directly appear in the final presentation. Three of the slides, the first, the fifth, and the last slide, each appear exactly once in the final presentation. The other three slides appear repeatedly in the final presentation, with different content each time.
  • The License_pattern.pptx contains three $FORMAT slides (the second, third, and fourth slides in the file). Much of the magic of formatting the presentation is defined on these slides. Refer to the notes on the bottom of these slides for more information.
  • The fifth and sixth slides in License_pattern.pptx are used to generate one table of contents slide containing hyperlinks for each Subelement, and for each Subelement, one table of contents slide containing hyperlinks for each Group in that Subelement. The magic that instructs SlideMight to generate these slides is contained in alt-text attached to the table.
  • The eighth slide in License_pattern.pptx is probably the most complex. It contains three precisely overlapping tables. One table contains the question and the four possible choices. The second table contains the gold star that uses the Fly In (from the top) Animation to indicate the correct answer. The third table contains the optional explanation that uses the Dissolve In Animation to reveal the explanation.
  • The eighth slide also contains a placeholder graphic in the lower right corner. This picture contains alt-text that instructs SlideMight to replace it with the Figure associated with the question for questions that have associated figures (and to remove it if there is no figure). Note that SlideMight provides no capability to wrap text around a picture; therefore, some of the figures contain a transparent background larger than the figure to ensure that the figure is reduced in size and positioned so that it does not overlap any of the text.
  • Most of the slides in the final presentation have navigation buttons, such as Home (go to the Subelement list) and Up (go to the Group list for the current Subelement). In the pattern file, the Home button is a hyperlink to slide 5, and the up button is a hyperlink to slide 6 or 7, as appropriate. Although pattern slides 6 and 7 appear multiple times in the generated presentation, SlideMight automatically generates the link to the appropriate slide.

YAML Files for Technician and Amateur Extra License Exams

Note that the License_config.yaml, License_pattern.pptx, and figures.zip files provided in the example can be used with SlideMight and one of the following pattern files to generate PowerPoint slides for the Technician Class License or the Amateur Extra Class License.
  • Technician_data-2014.yaml: YAML text file containing the data for the (July 1, 2014 through June 30, 2018) Technician Class License Exam.
  • Technician_data-2018.yaml: YAML text file containing the data for the (July 1, 2018 through June 30, 2022) Technician Class License Exam.
  • Extra_data.yaml: YAML text file containing the for the Amateur Extra Class License Exam.