Presentation Folder Sync

A VS Code extension for working with PowerPoint decks: inspect them at a glance, push them between folders with a reviewable plan, and search across hundreds of decks by content. Designed first for vscode.dev (works there without installing anything locally), and also runs in desktop VS Code.

No slide rendering — this isn't a viewer that shows you the slides. It shows you everything around the slides (metadata, validation, thumbnail) so you can tell what a file is at a glance before opening it in PowerPoint, Keynote, or LibreOffice.

Pre-release. Versions in the 0.1.x series are pre-1.0 builds. See CHANGELOG.md (also rendered as the Changelog tab on the Marketplace listing) for what's landed in each publish — and what's queued in the live test build at https://vscode.sophtwhere.com ahead of the next publish.

Four features, useable independently

1. Presentation viewer

Open any .pptx and a metadata panel takes the place of the usual "binary file" treatment:

• File name, size, hash, slide count, hidden-slide count, author, last-modified-by
• Embedded media summary (audio / video / image counts by mime type)
• Thumbnail — the deck's own embedded thumbnail when present, or a synthesised coloured-box + title-text fallback so every deck has one
• Three safety checks as pass/warn flags:
  • Linked media — slides reference video or audio that lives outside the file (won't play on a different machine)
  • Show type — file is set to kiosk or window mode instead of normal presenter mode
  • Media controls — on-screen player bar is enabled (visually noisy during a talk; usually a leftover from authoring)

Actions in the viewer:

• Save As… — download a copy
• Update… — pick a new .pptx and replace this one (compares first, refuses if identical)
• Extract media — pull any embedded video out as a standalone file
• Drag & drop a .pptx onto the viewer — same compare-and-update flow without picking
• Drag & drop a .pdf onto the viewer — open the PDF → PPTX import modal (resolution, aspect, format, quality), one slide per page

A separate PDF preview also opens any .pdf and renders page 1, so files clicked from search don't open as raw bytes.

2. Folder sync

One-way push from a source folder to one or more destination folders. You convene every sync; nothing fires in the background.

The flow:

1. Drop a .sync.jsonc in any folder you want to push from. A custom editor opens by default with form fields for destinations, paths, and include/exclude globs; the file is regular JSONC and IntelliSense works in the text editor too.
2. Add the destination folders to your workspace (in vscode.dev: drag from File Explorer, or use File → Add Folder to Workspace).
3. Click Folder Sync in the status bar, or right-click any folder under a source in the Explorer → Sync This Folder.
4. A plan webview opens, showing every file that would be created, updated, or deleted. Operations are grouped into six categories:
   • To create
   • To update (already tracked)
   • To delete (source removed)
   • Collisions — destination has drifted from what the manifest expected (per-row "overwrite this file" toggle, plus a "don't ask again" checkbox that persists)
   • Destination-only files — never placed by sync (per-row delete toggle, default off)
   • Validation warnings — files flagged by the pptx viewer's safety checks
5. Choose a path through the traffic-light gate:
   • Green Proceed when nothing needs attention (clean plan)
   • Orange "Proceed with safe items only" when collisions or warnings exist — applies only the items you armed plus the always- safe ones
   • Red Cancel to back out entirely

A manifest file in each destination (.foldersync-manifest.json) tracks what was placed there, so sync can distinguish files it put there from files you added by hand. The manifest opens in its own view-only editor showing tracked entries, recorded decisions, and last-sync timestamps.

Workspace snapshot. Because vscode.dev forgets which folders you had open across a browser refresh, the extension keeps an .admin-sync.jsonc snapshot of the open-folder set + relevant settings in the root of your first workspace folder. On a folderless reload, it re-mounts the folders for you (no permission prompts after the first grant). The snapshot has its own editor with rename / refresh / clear actions.

3. Presentation search

Command palette → Presentation Search: Open.

A workspace-wide search panel that matches across:

• Filename
• dc:creator (author) metadata
• First-visible-slide text

Type a query and watch results appear as you type. AND across terms by default, with an Any term (OR) checkbox. Results are grouped by workspace folder, deduplicated by content hash, and a coloured badge highlights when the same content lives in multiple places (a useful sanity check when you're shipping the same deck to several conference rooms). Click a result to open the viewer.

Multi-select with Update with… — pick a source row, tick one or more target rows, and push the same content into every target in one gesture. PDF sources route through the viewer's PDF→PPTX import flow automatically.

Sync destinations are excluded from indexing — the search shows you sources and other workspace folders, not their mirrors.

4. Event schedule editor

For conference / event organisers: a form-driven planner for *.eventSchedule files. Lay out an event as days × timeslots × rooms and assign speakers to each session, then generate a folder tree ready to wire up with the sync feature.

Event header.

• Event name + days (comma-separated, e.g. MON, TUE, WED)
• Default timeslots — comma-separated labels (e.g. A, B, C) seeded into any newly-added day. An Apply to all button next to it positionally renames every existing day's slots to match — a pure rename that cascades into sessions, never drops one.

Speaker pool + rooms.

• Add / remove speakers (chips). The speaker pool also grows automatically when you paste a roster (see below).
• Add / remove rooms; each room has a kind (plenary, breakout, etc.) used by the folder generator.

Day × timeslot × room grid.

• Click any cell to open a session edit panel. Edit session title (optional free-form), and add / remove / reorder speakers via the inline speaker picker — the picker filters out anyone already assigned to another session at the same (day, timeslot) so a single click can never double-book. Drag chips to reorder.
• Hover a row's leftmost cell for the timeslot affordances: ▲ / ▼ reorder the slot up or down within the day, an inline rename input (filename-safe), and ✕ to delete (modal confirms with affected- session count). Per-day independent — renaming MON's "B" doesn't touch TUE's.
• Hover a filled session cell for ▲ / ▼ at the right edge: swap this session with the row neighbour in the same room.
• A trailing + Add timeslot to <day> row appears under every day-block; new labels default to the next letter past the day's max.
• Session edit panels are mutually exclusive — opening one auto-closes any other.

Bulk paste workflows.

• Paste a multi-line clipboard payload (e.g. an Excel column) into the speaker or room Add input and the whole list ships as one bulk add. Pressing Enter on a single name still works as expected.
• Paste a roster into a session's speaker picker filter to replace that session's roster with the pasted names. Unknown names auto-add to the pool (so you can build a schedule from a list of rosters without a separate speaker-adding step). Same-timeslot conflicts resolve automatically — anyone displaced from another session is surfaced in a modal.

Tools section (collapsible).

• Generate sample schedule — fills an empty file with random example data using the breakout/plenary knobs (room count, breakout count, etc.). Visible only when the file is empty or structurally empty so authored data can never be wiped.
• Clear — wipes speakers + rooms + sessions (modal confirm), but keeps your config + days + timeslot labels. Turns the file back into a placeholder that Generate sample schedule can refill.
• Generate folders… — materialises a folder tree from the schedule into a destination of your choice. Layout chooser (room-major vs day-major); writes one empty-.pptx placeholder per (session, speaker) plus one <roomId>.roomSync template per unique room ready to wire up with the sync feature. Re-runs preserve any .roomSync you've hand-wired.

JSON-Schema IntelliSense lights up if the file is reopened as text.

Quick start

vscode.dev (no install)

1. Open https://vscode.dev.
2. Install Presentation Folder Sync from the Extensions sidebar.
3. File → Add Folder to Workspace and pick a folder containing .pptx files.
4. Click any .pptx — the viewer takes over.

Desktop VS Code

1. Install from the Marketplace (search "Presentation Folder Sync"), or
2. Download a .vsix from the releases page and use Extensions sidebar → ⋯ menu → Install from VSIX.

Configuring sync

The sync feature reads a .sync.jsonc at the root of each source folder. Minimal example:

{
  // Destinations are workspace folders, identified by URI.
  // Copy the URI from .admin-sync.jsonc (the workspace snapshot file)
  // — using the URI rather than a display name means renaming a folder
  // in the UI won't break this config.
  "destinations": [
    { "uri": "file:///handle/abc-backup-drive" },
    { "uri": "file:///handle/def-archive", "path": "snapshots/alpha" }
  ],

  // Optional: glob patterns to exclude (added to the built-in ignore list)
  "exclude": [
    "node_modules/**",
    "build/**",
    "*.tmp"
  ]

  // Optional: glob patterns to include (default is everything not excluded)
}

Always ignored (you don't need to list these): .git/, .DS_Store, Thumbs.db, ~$* (Office lock files), .sync.jsonc itself, .foldersync-manifest.json, and *.tmp.

The bundled JSON schema gives you autocomplete and red squiggles in the text editor; the custom editor gives you dropdowns of currently-open workspace folders so you don't have to copy URIs by hand for the simple case.

Commands

All available from the command palette under the Folder Sync, Pptx Info, and Presentation Search categories:

What this extension does not do (by design)

• No slide rendering. The viewer surfaces metadata, validation, and a thumbnail. To see the slides themselves, open the file in PowerPoint, Keynote, or LibreOffice.
• No legacy .ppt support. Pptx only.
• No bidirectional sync. Pushes go one way: source → destination(s). Nothing flows back.
• No scheduled or automatic sync. You convene every run. The plan webview is always between you and any write.
• No three-way merge. When a destination file has drifted out from under the manifest, the plan flags it as a collision; you choose overwrite or skip. There's no merging.
• No background watchers writing files. File watchers exist to keep the plan view fresh, never to fire writes.

How writes work

• Atomic write pattern: contents go to <path>.tmp first, then a rename swaps it into place. An interrupted sync leaves only the original file at the final path; orphan .tmp files are swept on the next run.
• Files are matched by content (SHA-256). Renaming a destination file doesn't confuse the planner — but the manifest is keyed by source path, so files renamed at the source surface as a delete + create pair until you sync.
• In vscode.dev, folder access is granted by the browser's File System Access API. The first time you add a folder it asks; subsequent refreshes restore the grant automatically.

Where to look when something seems off

• Output panel → Pptx Info — activation, per-file parse, sync events, and any errors
• DevTools console (Help → Toggle Developer Tools) — same lines, prefixed [pptx-viewer], plus a build timestamp + short git SHA per activation. Handy when reporting issues.

Issues and feedback

Report at https://github.com/jonathan-annett/pptx-viewer-ext/issues. PRs and discussions welcome.

License

MIT.