Presentations

Overview

A presentation is a slide deck built from the model. Use it for design reviews, gate briefings and status reports.

Slides can stay linked to the model. An Entity card shows an entity's number, name and description. A Diagram slide shows a live diagram picture. A Table slide lists the entities a query finds. When the model changes, the slides change with it.

Open the list on Plan & Deliver → Presentations. A deck opens in the presentation editor at presentation/<id>; add ?slide=<n> to open a given slide.

Concepts

Presentations and slides

A presentation is an Artifact labeled Presentation. Each slide is a child Artifact (decomposed by), with its own comments and history. The deck stores the slide order.

A slide can belong to several presentations. Any presentation works as a slide library: Add Existing Slide… with a presentation adds all its slides to the current deck. A reused slide shows a link icon in the slide panel.

Layouts

A layout is the set of shapes a new slide starts with:

Slides made with an earlier layout keep their shapes; the right panel shows the layout name.

Theme

The deck Theme sets the colours of every slide:

• Slides: Light or Dark.
• Accent: Teal, Blue, Violet, Green or Orange. Shapes, bullets, table headings and the footer rule without a colour of their own use the accent.
• Footer: Slide numbers, Project marking and Footer text.

The project marking is the header and footer text set with ⌘K / Ctrl+K → Project Marking… (see Document Generation). With Project marking on, the slides show it while you edit and present. Exports always carry it.

How to use it

When and why

Use a presentation when a review needs slides instead of a document: a design review, a milestone briefing or a status update. Build it late in a phase, from the model you already have. Diagram pictures, entity cards and tables then show the current model, so the deck does not go stale between reviews.

Create a presentation

1. Go to Plan & Deliver → Presentations.
2. Click + New Presentation.
3. Enter a Name.
4. Choose Start from: A title slide, or A document outline and the document.

   With a document outline you get a title slide plus one slide per top-level section, with the section text.

5. Click Create.

   The editor opens on the first slide.

Add slides from the model

1. Click + New Slide ▾ and choose a layout.

   The slide goes after the current slide.

2. For Entity card…, pick the entity in the search dialog.
3. For Diagram…, type part of the diagram's name in the menu and choose it.
4. For Table…, choose Rows from:
   • a project query (the table follows later edits to that query),
   • A query typed here, then enter it in Database search syntax, for example class:Requirement label:"Key Requirement",
   • a saved matrix.

     Click Create.

Add text, shapes and pictures

1. Click Text for a text box. Double-click it, or press Enter on it, to type.
2. Click Shapes ▾ and choose a shape in the grid.

   The groups are Basic, Connectors, Callouts, Status and Model symbols.

3. Click Picture ▾ → Picture of… for a picture of any view: a diagram, document, chart, review package, test suite, DoDAFDepartment of Defense Architecture Framework The US DoD framework for describing architectures as a set of viewpoints and products, such as OV-1 and SV-1. product or UAFUnified Architecture Framework An OMG architecture framework that organizes views in a grid of viewpoints and aspects. It covers DoDAF and NATO needs. view.
4. Click Picture ▾ → Upload Image… for an image file.
5. Click Equation for a LaTeX equation.

Drag a shape to move it. Drag the corner handle to resize and the top dot to rotate.

Set the theme and footer

1. Click an empty part of the slide, so that no shape is selected.

   The right panel shows the slide and the Theme.

2. Choose Light or Dark and an Accent.
3. Turn on Slide numbers and Project marking as needed.
4. Type the Footer text, for example the review name.

Each change applies at once and is one undo step.

Reuse slides from another presentation

1. Click Add Existing Slide….
2. Pick a presentation.

   Its slides are added after the current slide. They stay one set of slides: an edit shows in both decks.

3. To make a picture slide of another item, pick that item instead.

Present and export

1. Click ▶ Present ▾ → Present from the Start or Present from Current Slide.
2. Press → or Space for the next slide, ← for the previous one and Esc to stop.
3. To export, click Export… and choose Current slide (PNG), Current slide (SVG), Presentation (HTML), Presentation (PowerPoint) or Presentation (Word).

Worked example: the CubeSat EO-1 demo

The demo project has the deck BR EO-1 Design Review Briefing with six slides.

1. Open Plan & Deliver → Presentations and open the briefing.
2. Select slide 2, Mission Overview, then click + New Slide ▾ → Diagram… and choose the spacecraft's Asset diagram.

   The new slide shows the diagram, captioned with the spacecraft's name.

3. Click + New Slide ▾ → Table…, choose A query typed here and enter class:Risk.

   The slide lists the project's risks by number, name and class.

4. Click an empty part of the slide. Under Theme, choose Dark and Teal, and turn on Project marking.
5. Type EO-1 CDR as the Footer text.

   Every slide now shows the marking, the footer text and its number.

Tips and good practice

• Prefer Entity card, Diagram and Table slides to copied text. They follow the model, so the deck stays current.
• Keep one presentation as a slide library (for example standard program slides) and add its slides to each review deck.
• Set the project marking before you export. Exports always carry it.
• Use the Status shapes (check, cross, warning, information) to mark results on a summary slide.

Common mistakes

• A picture says "Missing artifact". The diagram or view it showed was deleted. Remove the picture and add a new one with Picture of….
• A table shows "The table query has a syntax error." The query or the project query it uses was changed. Fix the query in the Database, or make a new Table slide.
• An edit on one deck changed another. The slide is shared (link icon). Use Duplicate Slide to make a separate copy first.

How it connects

• Model: Entity cards and diagram captions read and write the entity's number, name and description.
• Database: Table slides use the same query syntax and project queries as the Database.
• Documents: a new deck can start from a document outline; review packages collect documents for the same review.
• Markings: the theme's footer shows the project marking set for documents and exports.

Presentation editor

Top bar

Toolbar

Shapes grid

Shapes from earlier versions of Holarch still show and export; they are no longer in the grid.

Slide panel

The left panel lists the slides. Drag a slide to reorder it. A link icon marks a slide used in more than one presentation.

Right-click a slide, or press ⇧F10 / Shift+F10, for:

• Move Up and Move Down,
• Duplicate Slide,
• Open Slide Item: the slide's entity page,
• Remove from Presentation (Delete): the slide item stays in the project; the toast offers Undo and Delete Entity…,
• Delete Slide Item…: deletes the slide item from the project after a confirmation.

Right panel

With a shape selected:

• X, Y, Width, Height, Rotation° and Keep aspect ratio,
• Text size, Text colour and alignment (text), Label (model symbol), the query (table),
• Fill and Outline (shapes),
• Use Theme Colours: clears the shape's own colours, so it follows the theme,
• Bring Forward, Send Backward, Duplicate Shape and Remove Shape.

With nothing selected:

• the slide item and its Layout,
• where else the slide is used (Used in n presentations),
• Background: Theme, Colour or Image, and Apply to All Slides,
• Duplicate Slide, Remove from Presentation and Delete Slide Item…,
• Theme: Slides (Light, Dark), Accent, Footer (Slide numbers, Project marking) and Footer text,
• Comments on the slide.

Notes for the speaker go in the box under the slide. They are exported to HTML, PowerPoint and Word.

Keyboard shortcuts

Messages

Limits

• Slides are 16:9 (960 × 540).
• A Table slide shows as many rows as fit its height, then and n more. PowerPoint export writes up to 40 rows as text.
• PowerPoint export draws diagram pictures as images; other pictures export as placeholders.

Related

• Project Management
• Document Generation
• Keyboard Shortcuts