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deckcraft/docs/control-protocol.md
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Matúš LacoandClaude Opus 5.5 c871c5f634 Export: animated GIF of the deck (Export… dialog, CLI, MCP) (#171)
There was no way to turn a presentation into an animated GIF. file.export now writes one: format
`gif` (or a .gif path), one frame per slide drawn by the slide renderer and shown for
secondsPerSlide, encoded with the `image` crate's GIF encoder (already a dependency, no new
crates) with a 256-colour palette per frame: exact when a slide has 256 colours or fewer,
NeuQuant otherwise. Slides are composited onto white.

Options: width (small 640, medium 960 (default), large 1280, extraLarge 1920, or 16-3840 px; the
height follows the slide's aspect ratio, no side over 3840), secondsPerSlide (0.1-600, default 5,
written in GIF hundredths), loop (forever by default, or once: no NETSCAPE2.0 block), slides (a
list of indices, in play order) and includeHidden (hidden slides are skipped by default).
Out-of-range or wrongly typed values, NaN and infinities are BadParams errors, never panics; at
most 500 frames and 200 million pixels in total, checked before anything is rendered.

- Engine: crates/engine/src/gif_export.rs (options, frame list, size, encoder);
  cmd::file::gif_bytes, save_bytes("gif"), format_for_path(".gif").
- UI: the Export… dialog (Command palette; the app has no File menu yet) gets "Animated GIF (.gif)" with Size, Seconds per slide, From/To slide,
  Loop forever and Include hidden slides; an invalid range or value keeps the dialog open with a
  message. The web build downloads the bytes (image/gif).
- CLI: convert IN OUT.gif, run --export OUT.gif --export-params JSON; usage lists the format and
  options.
- MCP: the export tool lists gif and width/secondsPerSlide/loop (slides and includeHidden now
  apply to PDF and GIF).
- Docs: file-format parity GIF row, gaps (video export remains), parity checklist row M -> P
  (P2 breadth 36% -> 37%, overall 79%), control protocol, MCP, README, ROADMAP progress log.

Transitions and build animations are not animated in the GIF (tracked with video export).

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-10-11 23:00:33 +02:00

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Control protocol

Start the app with --control <port>. The server listens on 127.0.0.1 only and speaks JSON lines: one request object per line, one reply per line.

{"id": 1, "method": "engine.execute", "params": {"command": "shape.insert", "params": {"preset": "roundRect", "rect": [100, 100, 240, 120], "text": "Hello"}}}
{"id": 1, "ok": true, "result": {"id": 258}}

Coordinates are slide points (1/72 inch; a 16:9 slide is 960 × 540) unless noted.

Method Params What it does
engine.execute / ui.menu.invoke / command {command, params} Run any command (see engine.commands; deckcraft-cli describe ID documents one)
engine.commands — Every command: id, label, menu path, shortcut, params doc, enabled / disabled reason
document.inspect — Slides, sections, layouts, shapes, selection
ui.inspect — UI state, active tool, window/canvas/slide rects, dialog, Home (start screen over the open presentations), slide show state, documents, perf (fps, render ms)
ui.tool.select {tool, preset?} select, text, shape + preset, any preset name, curve, freeform, scribble, pen, highlighter, eraser
ui.pointer {events: [{kind: down|drag|up|move|doubleclick|tripleclick, x, y, mods?}], mods?} Drive the active tool in slide points through the same code path as the mouse
ui.key / ui.text {key, shift?, alt?, cmd?} / {text} Keyboard input (also drives a running slide show)
ui.move / ui.click / ui.drag screen points Real egui pointer input — reaches every widget, menu and pane
ui.set {tab?, view?, pane?, notes?, zoom?, brightness?, ruler?, gridlines?, guides?, …} UI state (returns the full state)
ui.dialog.open / ui.dialog.close {id, fields?} Open or close a dialog by id; fields pre-fills its fields (About: {"tab": "contributors"} or "models")
ui.screenshot {path?} PNG of the whole window (base64 when no path)
ui.render {path?, slide?, scale?} Render a slide headlessly
ui.resize / ui.focus Window control
show.start / show.end {from?: slide index, presenter?, reading?} Slide show
app.open / app.save / app.export / app.quit {path, …} Files (export takes the file.export params, e.g. {"path": "deck.pdf", "layout": "handouts", "perPage": 3} or {"path": "deck.gif", "width": "large", "secondsPerSlide": 3, "loop": false})

The MCP server (deckcraft-cli mcp, see mcp.md) wraps the same methods for Claude and other agents; deckcraft-cli app METHOD [JSON] sends one request from a shell.