Adapting a presentation for different audiences can be a daunting task. You may need to include or omit different details for length, change the language (human and/or programming), and more. This gets very cumbersome with large binary files like from PowerPoint or Keynote. But with any Markdown or HTML based presentation tool, Genaver makes it much easier!

Genaver (Gen-A-Ver) is a small piece of JavaScript I wrote, to generate versions of a talk, with pieces chosen on the basis of parameters, and even content constructed from variables. For example, after you have created and tagged the necessary content, it can create a version with the introduction in Japanese, the code in Ruby, and fitting in 45 minutes, or with the introduction in Portuguese, the code in Elixir, and fitting in 30 minutes, just by changing parameters.

It can also be used for other purposes, such as including or excluding JavaScript libraries that soak up resources, substituting a child's name in a letter from Santa Claus / Father Christmas, and much more.

This talk is the story of how that came to be, including finding the need, other options I explored, how I settled on this way, how it works under the hood, where to find it, and how you can use it too.