[gtkada] Phanax: A GtkAda-based presentation tool.

[Bobby D. Bryant]

I have used GtkAda to create a graphical presentation tool called
Phanax.  Phanax is designed to provide a standalone tool for projecting
slides from a Linux laptop or workstation.  (It should work under Unix
as well, if the necessary tools and libraries are available.)

Phanax currently supports slides consisting of text, images, and plugin
programs.  More information is available at my personal Web site,
http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/bdbryant/phanax/, including screenshots
of a sample presentation.

Phanax is published under the GPL.  You can download the code for a
working demo (including a sample presentation file) from the Web site
named above.  Although I am calling this a pre-release demo, you should
find it immediately useful if you don't mind working around a few
desirable features that have not yet been implemented.

Since I am distributing this pre-release demo as source code only, this
initial announcement is going out to the users of GtkAda only (i.e., you
are the most likely to have all the necessary tools and libraries
already installed on your systems).  I would appreciate it if a few of
you could try it and let me know what breaks before I release it to the
larger community.  I would also be happy to hear from anyone who
actually uses Phanax for a presentation.  (My next big presentation is
still half a year away.)

I hope Phanax will eventually be fully portable, but at present it will
only work on Linux and Unix (with appropriate free libraries), and will
only compile as-is with GNAT.  See the Web site for the specific system
requirements, and see the README file in the kit for an explanation of
the restrictions on portability.

IMPORTANT: It may be appropriate to post an "Oh, wow, you guys should
check this out!" comment back to this list (if indeed you feel that way
about Phanax), but if you have questions or more substantial feedback
you should write me directly rather than sending lots of traffic over
this general GtkAda list.  If sufficiently many people are interested, I
will try to set up a mailing list for Phanax-related communications, and
perhaps even the application over to SourceForge or the like.

Thanks,

Bobby Bryant
Austin, Texas

p.s. -- I would be pleased if the GtkAda maintainers would add Phanax to
their list of applications using GtkAda, on their GtkAda Web site.