Hello HN, here's an open source app I've been working on for the past few weeks.

I love Excalidraw[1], the virtual whiteboard (discussed recently here on HN[2]). Its UX is great - simple and intuitive - and really makes it easy for me to express my thoughts and explain complex concepts with a quick sketch. I want to use it to make slides!

However Excalidraw is not specifically designed for that. I used it for that many times actually, but the workflow is quite cumbersome: drawing a same-sized perimeter for each slide, adding to each slide watermarks and other common elements, exporting each slide as PNG into a powerpoint... it takes a long time!

So well, here's Excalideck to simplify that workflow. :)

It's still in early development, so it's not very polished. But you're welcome to give it a try, make some slides, and let me know how it goes!

[1] https://excalidraw.com [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29109995

Very cool! Even though the name suggests that Excalideck is for slide presentations, this is incredibly useful for me to organize multiple Excalidraw canvases for personal use. I often create system architecture diagrams that are separate but related. Rather than having to scroll around the infinite Excalidraw canvas or use multiple Excalidraw links (which I organize in a Google doc), now I can just flip through Excalideck slides. Small but very convenient

I like it - I am also a fan of Excaldraw.

I noticed some kind of error coming up in trying to export to pdf - other than that it seems to be working well.

I am using the following set up ``` uname -a Linux arch-t460p 5.14.16-arch1-1 #1 SMP PREEMPT Tue, 02 Nov 2021 22:22:59 +0000 x86_64 GNU/Linux (base) ~ via 🅒 base firefox --version Mozilla Firefox 94.0

```

I am not sure, but this message that pops up seems to suggest that it might not be establishing a good naming convention for the save.

``` application/vdn.excalideck+pdf (92.6 KB) ```

I will put an issue on the github project if I see it persists in the next day or two.

Thanks for sharing - great work! Between presentation tools like this and reveal-md we have some nice options for building out presentations.

Thinking about it. It would be great if it was possible to export each of the slides as independent png/svg as well. That would allow some possibilities to open up for using it with reveal-md

I like it, but is there a presentation mode? So far I found fullscreen and zen-mode, but it was still showing the slide overview.

It would be awesome if it would be using the JS API for presentations!

In the past I have used Excalidraw Slides [0], which is open source [1] too. Any chance you looked into this as well?

[0] - https://excalidraw-slides.netlify.app

[1] - https://github.com/scastiel/excalidraw-slides

I would appreciate an official Docker image. It also helps with a consistant dev env

Loved it.

Is there no way to start a slideshow? As in fullscreen slides? If there is such a control, it isn't obvious to me. If it isn't would be awesome to have it.

This looks very nice and useful, thanks! Bookmarked :D

When loading a library I get an error "There was an error loading the third party library." Using Safari on macOS.

This is amazing! As a student I am always looking for tools to make good presentations fast. Wonderful !

However, I am wondering is there any way to add equations through latex of mathjx? Write now I feel that only way to include equations is via images or hand draw them.

This is great. I'd love an electron app, excalitron?

This is amazing and I will use this.