Use of actions

[josephwright]

Implementing the 'action' concept, I've set up the same actions as beamer provides:

• alert
• only
• invisible
• uncover
• visible

However, there are some technical issues with only that are worrying me, and more generally I'm not sure how useful actions other that alert are for users - Till set up actionenv to use the document-level implementations of actions, but I've not done that.

So I'm I sure people use <1-|alert@1>, etc., but much less so about <only@4> or <1-3|invisible@2> and so on.

What's the feeling?

[wspr]

I don’t think I could dig up examples quickly, but I’m pretty sure I’ve used various combinations of uncover, only, and alert. I can’t recall why I would have used only instead of uncover though!

I didn’t know about (or had forgotten) visible and invisible. I can kind of imagine convoluted examples showing elements of a diagram (or mind map) popping in and out, but that’s only a vague idea.

[cfr42]

This one is I guess on the border of 'what counts as one frame' - I'd have gone for restart-the-numbering myself, but I can see the argument that logically this is one list so should be one frame. Interesting use case.

I quite often have an enumerate which will not fit onto a single frame, where this would be an infer if it wasn't beamer. I cannot restart the numbering in that case and I quite often want something which ends up like 1,3,7,9 on the final slide, where this reflects the overall structure of an argument. I then just have the handout mode do the same as the beamer one. It would be a complete faff to have to split the argument into 4 separate frames. (I know because I used to do it for handout mode, when I didn't know you could use overlays there, too.)

\begin{frame}<1-| handout:1-3>{Shiller's Argument for ART}
  \begin{enumerate}
        \only<2-4| handout:1>{%
          \item<2-4,7-| handout:1> We will be able to create artificial creatures whose minds enable them to do and enjoy everything which makes human lives worthwhile.
          \item<3-4| handout:1> We will be able to give these creatures bodies which are significantly less vulnerable to physical sources of suffering than we are.
          \item<3-4| handout:1> We will be able to make these creatures significantly less vulnerable to psychological suffering, emotional distress and moral weakness than we are.
          \item<4| handout:1>[]------}
    \setcounter{enumi}{3}
    \item<4-| handout:1-3> We will be able to create artificial creatures who enjoy significantly better lives than us. (1--3)
    \only<5-7| handout:2>{%
      \item<5-| handout:2> We will be able to create these creatures with fewer resources than creating humans requires.
      \item<6-| handout:2> The extinction of human beings is not, just in itself, a significant cost.
      \item<6-7| handout:2>[]------}
    \setcounter{enumi}{6}
    \item<7-| handout:2-3> We will be able to create these creatures rather than human beings at relatively little cost. (5--6)
        \only<1,8-| handout:3>{%
          \setcounter{enumi}{7}
      \item<8-| handout:3> If we can improve the lives of future beings at relatively little cost, we should do so even if doing so alters which particular beings exist in the future.
      \item<1,8-| handout:3>[]------
          \item<1,8-| handout:3> We should bring about the extinction of our species when we have the ability to replace it with an artificial species whose members will have better lives without greater use of resources. \alt<8->{(4,7,8)}{(??)}}
  \end{enumerate}
\end{frame}

Apparently, I was too lazy to use \label/\ref here.

[josephwright]

Thanks - a useful example - I plan to look at extending the overlay code to enable multiple outputs for handouts shortly.

[josephwright]

@cfr42 I need to do the handout part, but I think the slides work :)

\DocumentMetadata{tagging = draft}
\documentclass{xbeamer}

\begin{document}
\begin{frame}
  \frametitle{Shiller's Argument for ART}
  \begin{enumerate}
        \only<2-4>{%
          \item<2-4,7-> We will be able to create artificial creatures whose minds enable them to do and enjoy everything which makes human lives worthwhile.
          \item<3-4> We will be able to give these creatures bodies which are significantly less vulnerable to physical sources of suffering than we are.
          \item<3-4> We will be able to make these creatures significantly less vulnerable to psychological suffering, emotional distress and moral weakness than we are.
          \item<4>[]------}
    \setcounter{enumi}{3}
    \item<4-> We will be able to create artificial creatures who enjoy significantly better lives than us. (1--3)
    \only<5-7>{%
      \item<5-> We will be able to create these creatures with fewer resources than creating humans requires.
      \item<6-> The extinction of human beings is not, just in itself, a significant cost.
      \item<6-7>[]------}
    \setcounter{enumi}{6}
    \item<7-> We will be able to create these creatures rather than human beings at relatively little cost. (5--6)
        \only<1,8->{%
          \setcounter{enumi}{7}
      \item<8-> If we can improve the lives of future beings at relatively little cost, we should do so even if doing so alters which particular beings exist in the future.
      \item<1,8->[]------
          \item<1,8-> We should bring about the extinction of our species when we have the ability to replace it with an artificial species whose members will have better lives without greater use of resources. \alt<8->{(4,7,8)}{(??)}}
  \end{enumerate}
\end{frame}
\end{document}

[josephwright]

Handout also working (I'm not sure that you need <1-| handout:1-3> on the frame env.)

[cfr42]

Handout also working (I'm not sure that you need <1-| handout:1-3> on the frame env.)

In beamer, I do (or did?). Otherwise I only get a single slide for handout. (Unless I've messed something up somewhere, which is highly likely.)

[josephwright]

OK, it seems we have solid use cases here - so I'll look at retaining the ability to use only as an action, and fix the issue I've spotted in light of that.

[cfr42]

@josephwright Sorry, I don't think that example really belonged in this thread.