| Prezi Offline in Linux |  (votes: 1, avg: 5.00)  Loading ... |
For creating my GameStore talk at LinuxWochen Wien I decided to use new and hip tool called Prezi. I’m not going to write about its features, you have to try and see for yourself. 
What I can say is that I really like the tool, but it has one big disadvantage – it’s written in Flash.
During the event we had a wireless connection available, but it was rather unreliable, so it was no option for me to present the talk online. I started to investigate the offline options. Either you can download the full blown Prezi Desktop, which is available if you subscribe the service, or you just download the Prezi “Player”. But wait, the page claims it is compatible only with Windows and Mac OS X. Let’s see. I downloaded the ZIP archive and indeed – it contains data folder with your presentation, Windows application (prezi.exe) and Mac OS X application (prezi.app).
Let’s get hacking! Mac OS X application is in fact just a directory structure. I copied the file prezi.app/Contents/Resources/movie.swf to the same location as my data directory and tried to run flashplayer movie.swf. Wow! The presentation started to load, but unfortunately it stopped after few seconds and I ended with this:
I tried straceing the process, but found nothing unusual (like failed open calls). Then I downloaded the debug version of Flash Player, run the command again and got this exception:
An ActionScript error has occurred: Error #2044: Unhandled SecurityErrorEvent:. text=Error #2140: Security sandbox violation: file:///.../movie.swf/[[DYNAMIC]]/1 cannot load file:///.../data/fonts/LiberationSerif-Regular.swf. Local-with-filesystem and local-with-networking SWF files cannot load each other.
Aha! Locally stored SWF files cannot load other SWF files, neither local ones, nor remote ones. That’s the problem. Ok, let’s change the standalone player settings. But how?! I tried various command line switch with no success. After couple minutes of searching I found that standalone Flash Player settings could be changed via Flash plugin that loads Settings manager from the Internet? WTF?!
I will make it easier for you: let’s google for “flash global security settings content creators”. The first result at the time of writing this article was this one. Go to this URL, wait until the Settings manager is loaded and then click on the “Edit locations …” button.
After that select “Add directory” and choose local directory where you store your presentations. From now on you enabled standalone Flash player to run your Prezis. Congratulations!
Even though I like Prezi, I would be ecstatic if they dropped Flash and used SVG instead as its presentation and interchange format, probably using the uber-cool SVG-edit as the core. It would also enable iPad users to use the tool. And yes, I know about JessyInk, but that’s not exactly what I have on mind …
hello,
thank you for publishing this hack. I’m happy to see that smart and enthusiastic hackers use prezi!
Can I ask something? You mentioned ‘it has one big disadvantage – it’s written in Flash.’. Do you really mind flash or you don’t like the fact that there is no linux version?
peter
halacsy
@Peter Halacsy
I mean Flash, because I think it would be possible to write Prezi completely using open technologies like SVG and Javascript. It would solve lots of cross-platform incompatiblity and also introduce good interchange format (SVG with embedded JS).
@Pavol Rusnak
I think flash solves a lots of cross-platform incompatibility. Unfortunately SVG rendering (especially animation) seems to be a bit slower.
@Peter Halacsy
Yes, but SVG rendering is getting better every day. And by using Flash you are missing one big opportunity – iPad. I will try to create a SVG+Javascript renderer for PEZ files (if I have time).
hey stick – don’t work with flashplayer 10.1.53.64 in Ubuntu 10.4 (Lucid). I Think the swf File is located in home/tekki/[PresentationName]/data/main.swf
I added my complete home directory in http://www.macromedia.com/support/documentation/en/flashplayer/help/settings_manager02.html as you said but there’s only white space in my flashplayer… any ideas?
hope you can help me – i like these prezi stuff…
regards
tekki
The trick worked for me. But it did not show my presentation, only a error message from prezi inside flash player:
“Oops, trouble with your Prezi!? First try checking your internet connection. If this doesn’t work you can always check help.”
I am on archlinux using flashplayer version 10.1.53.64 .
Where exactly did you get the flashplayer commandline tool? I’ve been looking, but all I can seem to find is the browser plugin. Do I need a Flash SDK? Is there an easy way to get the tool on Ubuntu?
Hi
I must be very clumsy, but on my ubuntu I get the same error as Antonio Lucas. I have downloaded the flasplayer and have added the folder as well as the file to the trusted sites. I then moved the movie.swf to the data/repo folder.
What else did you guys do?
Ketil
It seems that Prezi generates new presentations which cannot be fooled that way :-/ Another reason why to stick to SVG!
I’ve got the same error as Anonio and Ketill. The problem is some kind of 32/64 bits incompatibility with the current version of flash and library im-ibus.so
The Flash Desktop Player and Desktop Debbuger can be found here: http://www.adobe.com/support/flashplayer/downloads.html
This is the error at the command line: /usr/lib/gtk-2.0/2.10.0/immodules/im-ibus.so: wrong ELF class: ELFCLASS64.
I totally agree with Pavol, technology should be open. We are all adobe/flash slaves…
Tried this trick just yesterday, and it worked fine.
The movie.swf is in [presentation]/prezi.app/Contents/Resources/movie.swf.
I moved that to the [presentation] directory – i.e. not “data” as stated in original post! Then I added the [presentation] directory to the list of trusted locations using the online global security settings editor.
Then, using the commandline flashplayer, I could run the prezi;
$ flashplayer movie.swf
Thanks for a great tutorial that helped me greatly in getting this to work.
@Per
i dont seem to have the flashplayer commandline tool installed (only flashplugin-installer) but it worked with firefox!
as described by stick and Per above, i moved [presentation]/prezi.app/Contents/Resources/movie.swf to the [presentation] directory & added the [presentation] directory to the list of trusted locations using the online global security settings editor at http://www.macromedia.com/support/documentation/en/flashplayer/help/settings_manager04.html
and opened the movie.swf with firefox!
even keyboard shortcuts work!
Hey guys!
So, although this takes WINE AND Adobe’s Flash plugin, it works much easier.
I’m using Maverick 64bit.
I downloaded the .zip that supposedly only works on Mac or PC.
Opened it up, extracted that folder.
Now, select the prezi.exe, right-click and select Properties.
Mark as executable
Now, with WINE installed, open with WINE, using your Adobe FlashPlayer – works like a charm
@AJM
Many thanks @AJM. It really saved me time &effort
Works great man! Thanks
Awesome, thanks!
I moved the file prezi.app/Contents/Resources/movie.swf to the same location as my prezi.exe is and works like a charm. ( not forget to “Add directory” and choose local directory as the author said)
But I could not resize the stand-alone window from flashplayer.
Then I opened the movie.swf with firefox and press F11 (VollBild).
Regards
Murilo
Check out: SOZI, http://sozi.baierouge.fr/wiki/en:welcome
it’s another inkscape plugin that seems very promissing, it’s not as straighforward as prezi, but it has a lot more potention I think.
https://github.com/mikesimons/prezi-linux
Basically a scriptified version of this technique which also runs a lightweight webserver via ruby / rackup in order to bypass the flash security restrictions.
It also trims out the mac / windows binaries and compresses the presentation (though that has little effect as most of what is left will be compressed already).
prezi-linux worked fine to me
the size went down from 20MB to just 2.2 MB!!!
great tool, prezi should have something like that right out of the box
Hi out there.Today I wrote a simple gui for an offline player fo linux. If someone is interested in, take a look on https://github.com/TomFreudenberg/preziplayer/wiki.
Thanks a lot for that tip! My colleagues made a presentation using Prezi and it made me crazy! However, I also had to do as Murilo and copy the ‘movie.swf’ from [main directory]/prezi.app/Contents/Resources to [main directory] and open it from there (e.g. with firefox). Works like a charm!
Greets
Sorry, but this isn’t working on my computer. I’m using Ubuntu 11.10 and tried it by using Firefox and the Chromium-Browser. In both browsers the content part of the windows keeps white.
Is the another plan?
Greets
Hi there,
I’m not very technical – need prezi to run on my ubuntu netbook but can’t understand or follow what you’re saying. Would like to do it myself instead of relying on other more technically gifted people…
Can you please explain in normal people speak what I need to do to get prezi and ubuntu working together?
Thanks!
Amy
Hi Amy,
I wrote a simple tool with gui and installation for debian based systems like Ubuntu. Usage and installation is described at https://github.com/TomFreudenberg/preziplayer/wiki.
I think this is end user stuff
Greetings,
Tom