[texhax] Slides class

[Robin Fairbairns]

> 
> I have graduated from Slitex to the latex2e slides class.

i guess slitex has only been obsolete for 10 years...

> I have been able to unearth some of the commands (e.g. \slide, \endslide)
> but wonder if there are more that I have not discovered. Is there any
> documentation for slides.cls?

slides class is merely a re-encapsulation of the mid-1980s style of
slitex, in the context of 1994 latex; so if you know slitex you know
slides.cls.

i'm currently drafting a faq answer about slides.  the most nearly
solid text i have in it says: "when current latex came along, the
reason slitex had to be a separate program went away, and its
functionality was supplied by the slides class.  while this makes life
a little easier for system administrators, it does nothing for the
inferior functionality of the class: no-one ``who knows'' uses
slides.cls nowadays."

look at seminar or foils (aka foiltex, a "nosell" licence object, so
on the nonfree tree on ctan and not in distributions).  both are
somewhat younger than slides class, and do well if you're still in the
world that produces slides on foils.

if you give your presentations using a computer together with a
projector of some sort, look at texpower, prosper (or ha-prosper) or
beamer.

all of these packages come with documentation.  most recently i've
used beamer, which i learned (well enough) from scratch in under a
day (which day included writing my presentation).