Hey y'all. After spending hours trying to make the font size bigger in a default R Presentation @.Rpres file, I have a suggestion/request that I think could save new users tons of time on the learning curve:
There is implicit CSS options being built when the user creates an Rpres file. These are hidden away from the user, and that makes sense. However 35 seconds after creating a presentation many users will think, "that's nice, but I'd like to tweak XYZ". It would be great if the templating tool would create a css file linked to the markdown that illustrated how to override maybe 10-15 of the most popular formatting options. That would be crazy helpful.
I'm pretty freaking technical, but I had never edited a CSS file until yesterday. And to figure out how to change the font size to larger I had to do the following:
render to html
open html in chrome
user the inspector gadget to look at the source (a non trivial jump for most novice users)
figure out what the element name was
google how to change the element settings in CSS
implement that change in a linked CSS
discover that it doesnt work
drink coffee
hug the dog
google more
discover that you have to use different syntax in CSS to override an existing css setting
figure out that syntax
try it... fail
finally find an example where someone else overrode the font size on p, and both bullet settings. Yeah!
implement that change
it works
■■■■■ about how hard this is on Twitter:
I got up early to work on a presentation. I had the brilliant idea of using RMarkdown to create an Rpres. 3 hours and 4 css tutorials later I finally can change the font size so it's readable to someone over 30. FML, y'all. This is not a good experience. #rstats
Regardless, obviously more guidance would be helpful (even if to point out the pros and cons of using different slide frameworks, one of which might be that customization is much more difficult with one than another, but point to how it can be done e.g. to examples such as the css to Garrett's ioslides presentation from the rmarkdown gallery).