Editing, rehearsal, and presenting

The presenter workspace separates current-slide and next-slide previews, speaker notes, build output, and display controls from the audience window.

Edit the source

With the audience window closed, choose Edit Source to open the native editor alongside a slide preview. Moving the caret selects the corresponding slide. Drafts compile after a short pause; a failed compile keeps the last successful preview and reports the error. Edits autosave, and ⌘S saves immediately. Toggle Edit Source again to return to the presenter workspace.

Leaving the editor, closing the window, or quitting finishes pending saves. A save refuses to overwrite external changes. If it fails, the draft remains available unless you explicitly discard it. Presentation controls and shortcuts are inactive in source-editing mode.

Displays and rehearsal

In the presenter toolbar, choose Rehearsal for a windowed audience preview or Presentation for presenting. With multiple displays, use Assign display roles to choose Use for Audience and, optionally, Use for Notes. Identify Displays helps you match physical screens to the menu. Start with Start Rehearsal or Start Presentation, and use Stop when finished.

With one display, the presentation-windows menu offers Open Audience Window and Preview Notes Screen. With multiple displays, assign audience, notes, or unused roles. Your laptop can retain the presenter while another display shows the audience output.

Navigation and timer

Arrow, Space, and numeric navigation is suspended while editing notes. Page Up and Page Down still navigate outside source-editing mode. Shortcuts are scoped to the presenter window.

The elapsed-time menu offers Pause Timer, Resume Timer, and Restart Timer. Presentation settings control whether timing starts on the second slide and whether rehearsal timing pauses while editing.

Lock and apply updates

Opening the audience window locks live deck updates. Saves still compile, but new code and styles wait for Apply Update Now. Applying an update or stopping the audience does not remove the lock. Unlock Live Updates resumes automatic updates for subsequent saves; an already queued build still needs to be applied explicitly.

Opening another deck while locked also queues it. A failed rebuild leaves the last successful deck visible and reports the error. Check which build applied before rehearsing new content.

Display changes and blackout

If an audience display disconnects, output closes. Reconnect it, assign the audience role, and start again to resume at the same slide. The talk does not automatically move onto another screen. Resolution and position changes resize active presentation output; windowed rehearsal is left alone.

Choose Presentation → Blackout Audience to hide the audience deliberately, then toggle the same menu item to restore it. Window or render errors do not enable blackout automatically.

Slide errors

Slide-render failures leave presenter controls available. Slide errors shows details while the audience gets a neutral fallback. Retry Slide Content, navigating away and back, or applying a corrected build retries the content.

TypeGPU setup/render/device-loss and cleanup failures are caught by the host. Arbitrary event handlers, timers, infinite loops, and native crashes in trusted deck code are outside React error boundaries. See Troubleshooting.

Present without Metro

For contributors preparing a release app on a configured Mac, run from the Legend Apps root:

bun install --frozen-lockfile
bun run slides build macos
bun run slides open macos --release -- /absolute/path/to/talk.mdx

The macOS release embeds application JavaScript and a portable compiler with Bun and dependencies. It does not use Metro or need a checkout on the presenting machine. Quit any existing Slides process before opening it.

Build compiler resources on a Mac matching the target architecture and use the repository's Apple Development signing identity. Prepare before the venue rather than rebuilding or installing there.

Keep local deck files together, copy personal transitions into the deck, and install effect packs before going offline. Confirm the actual release opens the actual deck with Metro stopped. Native build success alone is not a passing rehearsal.

Rehearsal checklist

• Open the saved deck in the build you will present from.
• Check initial states, reveals, exits, and backward moves.
• Verify fonts, images, captures, GPU effects, and Webview content.
• Check notes and next-slide previews at every state.
• Select the real audience/notes displays and test blackout.
• Confirm the latest build applied and understand the live-update lock.
• For release presenting, rehearse offline with required packs installed and Metro stopped.

See Availability for release status.