Quarto extension

Per-slide timing, a countdown in the speaker view, and remote control for Quarto reveal.js presentations.

The qremote extension adds to any Quarto reveal.js presentation:

a time for each slide, if you want one;
a countdown in the speaker view (S), with a progress bar that turns red when time is up and where you should be by the end of the slide;
pause and reset keys, for rehearsals;
the link to the QRemote apps, to drive the presentation from your iPhone and Apple Watch.

Nothing is shown to the audience. The extension is free and open source (MIT license), and works on its own as a speaker-view timer. Try it in the demo.

Install

In the folder of your presentation (or of your Quarto project):

quarto add Nenuial/quarto-qremote

Or start a new presentation from the example:

quarto use template Nenuial/quarto-qremote

From the Mac app

QRemote Relay can also install the extension: menu › Install Quarto extension…, then choose the presentation’s folder. Running it again updates the extension.

Then enable it in the presentation’s YAML header:

format:
  revealjs:
    revealjs-plugins: [qremote]

Time your slides

Add a timing attribute to a slide’s title:

## Why it matters {timing="45"}

## The plan {timing="1:30"}

## Questions

timing accepts seconds (45, 45s) or minutes (1:30, 2m, 1m30s). It is reveal.js’s own data-timing attribute, so {data-timing="45"} works too.
Slides without a timing count up: the speaker view and the remotes show the time spent on the slide, with no countdown and no buzz. To give every slide a default time, set default-timing (below).
The title slide, and any slide with the class .standby, is not timed: the presentation clock starts when you leave it.

Keyboard

Key	Effect
`S`	Speaker view, with the slide countdown under reveal.js’s clock
`P`	Pause / resume the slide countdown (instead of reveal.js’s “previous slide”)
`R`	Reset: the total clock and the current slide start over

Clicking reveal.js’s clock in the speaker view (“Click to Reset”) also restarts the current slide. The speaker view’s labels are in English or French, following the document’s lang.

Options

All optional, at the top level of the YAML header:

qremote:
  default-timing: 30              # seconds (or "m:ss") for slides without `timing`
  relay: "http://localhost:8765"  # where QRemote Relay listens; false: no remote control
  title-slide-standby: true       # false: the title slide is timed like the others
  speaker-view: true              # false: no countdown in the speaker view

Option	Default
`default-timing`	none	Time for slides without `timing`. Unset: those slides count up.
`relay`	`http://localhost:8765`	Address of QRemote Relay. `false` turns remote control off.
`title-slide-standby`	`true`	The title slide is not timed; the clock starts when you leave it.
`speaker-view`	`true`	Shows the countdown in the speaker view.

Colors

The countdown uses your theme’s link color, and red when time is up. To change them:

/*-- scss:rules --*/
:root {
  --qremote-accent: #c4a7e7;
  --qremote-warn: #eb6f92;
}

Update

quarto update extension Nenuial/quarto-qremote

For developers: the relay protocol

QRemote Relay is a small HTTP server on port 8765; you can write your own remote. The presentation:

posts its state to POST /state (JSON sent as text/plain) on every change and every 3 seconds;
receives commands as Server-Sent Events from GET /events?client=<id>: {"cmd": "next" | "prev" | "pause" | "reset"}.

Remotes read GET /state and send POST /cmd/next, /cmd/prev, /cmd/pause or /cmd/reset; the relay answers with the new state once the presentation has moved. Presentation endpoints only accept requests from the Mac itself; remote endpoints require the PIN in an X-Token header when the PIN is on.

State fields: index, total, duration (seconds; 0 = untimed), elapsed, paused, standby, totalElapsed, plannedEnd, plannedTotal, fragment, fragments, title, slideTitle, nextTitle, notes.

Troubleshooting

See Support.