I often need to give presentations when I travel. OpenOffice has been working fine, but is there an easy way to connect a remote control under linux?
Laser pointers are great tools for presentations. And even better, some of them couple with remote controls that allow you to flip through the slides easily. Personally, I own a BeamPlus remote control. I got it only for about 80$ and it works great! It includes a red laser, a remote control, and a nice carrying case.
Now, there is a good, and a bad news... Let's start with the good one: as soon as you plug-in the receptor into your USB port, Mandriva will recognize it as a mouse and connect it properly. There is no configuration! And the bad one... It works, but the flip slides events are linked with the mouse wheel and OpenOffice Impress does not support slide transitions with the mouse wheel....
As you might have guessed, there is an easy workaround: it uses xmodmap to switch mouse events... It's really simple. Create the two following files:
laserpointeron.sh#!/bin/sh
xmodmap -e "pointer = 4 2 5 6 7 1 3"
exit
laserpointeroff.sh#!/bin/sh
xmodmap -e "pointer = 1 2 4 6 7 4 5"
exit
Put them somewhere in your path (like /usr/local/bin), and make them executable (chmod a+rx laserpointeroff.sh laserpointeron.sh).
When you want to start the presentation, open a console and run laserpointeron.sh. It will switch the mouse click and mouse wheel events: the two buttons on the beamplus laser pointer will become left and right click, just like you want it. When you're done with your presentation, simply run laserpointeroff.sh and your mouse will go back to its regular behavior.
That's it. You can forget the nightmares of running through a crowded room or screaming "Next!" to a colleague who fell asleep!
See also
- Beamplus PowerPoint Remote with Integrated Laser Pointer at ZyonShop.com
- laser pointers
at Amazon.com
- Basic shell commands and PATH management at the Mandriva Club
- Changing mouse button actions at hp.com