This section of the Help contains information about the functions and operations involved in the actual creation/editing of a presentation.

Shaker presentations are edited using the editor software module, we dubbed 'the engine'.
The engine is a Flash(tm) application, and you should read the browser issues section if you haven't worked with a Flash RIA environment before.

The engine is loaded when you create a new presentation, or open a presentation with the file-management utility of the website.

The Shaker engine won the Technical Merit Award at the FlashForward 2003 Flash Film Festival in New York.


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BASICS


interface
When the engine opens, it presents you with the editor's user interface. This is where you edit the slides.
The basic rule - whatever the control panels show, the settings refer to the currently selected object(s). The other way around, select an object to see all its parameters displayed on the various control panels.


preview
You can preview any slide from within the editor, using the wysiwyg preview. This preview is a simulation of the actions/effects of the presentation when played in full-screen mode, as a finalized presentation.


editing slides
The process of composing a slide in Shaker can be broken down to 3 steps:
1. Inserting up and arranging content on the slide
2. Animating the content
3. Timing the slide


1. inserting and arranging objects
You can insert any of the objects Shaker knows in the size you want. You can freely move inserted objects to arrange them on your slide.

2. animation & motion
Objects are animated by default with their default animation effect defined in the template. You can replace the default (template) animation effect with the user animations.


3. timing
By default, slides are played in a linear sequence - the objects enter the slide one after the other, focus animations are played, the objects exit the slide. Using the timing functions, you can to alter this sequence and synchronize presentation playback to your speech.
The timing section also contains details about the break function - an advanced tool you can use to build complex content structures.


saving & using files
When you're done editing your presentation, save it using the /File/save menu function, and close the presentation using the X in the upper-right corner of the screen.
To use a file for presentation, you must first Finalize it - this is when it is converted to full-screen mode.
These functions are explained in the 'network services' section of this HELP.