Code Woes

I hate programming, I really really do. I'm fairly competent in Visual Basic, ASP and ActionScript, but when I leave those languages for something new I find myself drowning in Code Hell in less than five minutes.

My latest project is quite specific, arising from a need I'm experiencing in my classroom. In my evening classes I usually start lecturing ten to fifteen minutes after class officially begins. This gives everyone time to get out of the office, drive to campus, find a parking space, use the bathroom, call baby-sitters, check email, boot the PC, ask questions . . . basically time to move their minds from one space (work) into a new space (school). Some educators are initially appalled by my "wasted" time, but please remember I have a four-hour class. We can spare fifteen minutes.

While I like this "transition time" I think it could be more effective. In the past I've shown a PowerPoint presentation in automated "kiosk" mode, where a new slide flashes up every ten seconds. The slides contain information like

• Today's lecture topic
• Approaching due dates & homework
• Software tips -- especially "hot keys"
• Books I've found valuable
• Logic problems
• Inspirational quotes on art, technology, creativity, etc.
• Screen shots of websites we'll be discussing in lecture

I liked using the PowerPoint because I could roam the room and interact with students who needed individual attention. Students could focus on the material as needed, as they relaxed into the class routine.

I hated using PowerPoint because, well, it's PowerPoint. It's a SLOW authoring environment. I have to export the files for the web (painful at best) or upload huge bit-laden proprietary files. PowerPoint, in my opinion, is one more obstacle between the user and the information. Anything that gets between the browser and the student is BAD, be it Flash or PowerPoint or Java or anything else that can somehow kill the information flow.

So imagine my delight when Molly Holzschlag demonstrated the CSS-based Opera Show at the League of Innovation Conference. It's everything I wanted . . . except . . . no kiosk mode. I'd have to sit there and hit the "enter" key, which defeats the purpose. I tried programming around it, but Opera has assigned functions to almost every keyboard key out there, and I couldn't find a way to subvert that "feature." Plus there isn't much documentation on JavaScript and Opera, so I couldn't even figure out where to start.

Then I stumbled across Dan Raggett's (of HTML Tidy fame) HTML Slidy, which is basically the same thing but not browser-dependant. But the same problem cropped up -- no kiosk mode. No problem, I thought. We're dealing with IE and Firefox now. I handed the problem over to Susan, my lab assistant, confident she would have something for me by the end of the semester.

When Susan couldn't make anything happen I tried to do it myself, and started pulling my hair out. This should be simple!!!!! I have four tasks. Four simple little tasks. And I can't get ANY of them to work.

1. Do cross-browser keyboard detection to start and end the slide show.
2. Use setInterval to arrange for a five-second delay between slides.
3. Send a fake "space" or "click" command to the browser to move to the next slide
4. Encapsulate the entire kiosk mode as a separate .js file

I could get the setInterval to work. That's it. Nothing else has worked at all.

I've spent about sixteen hours on this so far, with little to show for my efforts.

I hate programming.