Here's something that works with the example you posted, but might not work with more sophisticated overlay specifications. There are two parts to the method. The first is a little addition to the overlay code which tries to establish whether the current frame was explicitly mentioned, for example the 3 in \uncover<3->, or not, for example frame 4 in \uncover<4->. If explicitly mentioned, it sets a flag. The second part to the method is a little addition to pgfpages, imaginatively called pgfmorepages (CTAN and github), which - amongst other things - introduces the possibility of skipping a page when shipping out pages. So this looks for the flag set by the first part of the code and if it doesn't find it, it ignores the particular page.
There is a snag. You can't use the transparent option. That is because this does some look-ahead stuff and asks "Is this going to appear in a frame or two's time?" So it runs the overlay specifications with other frame numbers than the current one and that messes up the testing.
The other annoying bit is that each frame has to start with the command \mentionedsetup. This could be automated by adding it to one of the templates.
Here's the code with some sample frames.
%\url{http://tex.stackexchange.com/q/56990/86}
% 1. NO NOTES
\documentclass[]{beamer}
%% 2. DUAL-DISPLAY NOTES:
%\documentclass[hyperref={bookmarks=true}]{beamer}
\usepackage{pgfmorepages}
%\setbeameroption{show notes on second screen=left}
\makeatletter
\newif\if@mentioned
\@mentionedtrue
\pgfpagesdeclarelayout{1 on 1 with possible skip}
{
\def\pgfpageoptionborder{0pt}
}
{
\pgfpagesphysicalpageoptions
{%
logical pages=1,%
physical pages=1,%
first logical shipout=1,%
last logical shipout=1,%
current logical shipout=1,%
}
\pgfpagesphysicalpage{1}{
skip code={%
\if@mentioned
\pgfpagesshiptrue
\else
\pgfpagesshipfalse
\fi
}
}
\pgfpageslogicalpageoptions{1}
{%
center=\pgfpoint{.5\pgfphysicalwidth}{.5\pgfphysicalheight},%
}%
}
\pgfpagesuselayout{1 on 1 with possible skip}
\def\slidereferenced{%
\ifbeamer@inframe
\global\@mentionedtrue
\fi
}
\def\mentionedsetup{%
\ifnum\beamer@slideinframe=1
\global\@mentionedtrue
\else
\global\@mentionedfalse
\fi
}
\expandafter\let\csname
beamerx@\string\beamer@inframenote\endcsname\relax
\renewcommand<>{\beamer@inframenote}[2][]{}
\def\beamer@decodeuntil-#1,{%
\ifnum1<\beamer@minimum\global\beamer@minimum=1\fi%
\ifnum#1>\beamer@slideinframe\global\beamer@anotherslidetrue\beamer@localanotherslidetrue\fi%
\ifnum\beamer@slideinframe>#1\else\gdef\beamer@doifnotinframe{\beamer@doifinframe}\fi%
\ifnum\beamer@slideinframe=#1\relax\slidereferenced\fi%
\beamer@@decode}
\def\beamer@decodeto#1,{%
\ifnum#1<\beamer@minimum\global\beamer@minimum=#1\fi%
\ifnum#1>\beamer@slideinframe\global\beamer@anotherslidetrue\beamer@localanotherslidetrue\fi%
\ifnum#1>\beamer@slideinframe\else\gdef\beamer@doifnotinframe{\beamer@doifinframe}\fi%
\ifnum\beamer@slideinframe=#1\relax\slidereferenced\fi%
\beamer@@decode}
\def\beamer@decodebetween#1#2,{%
\ifnum#1<\beamer@minimum\global\beamer@minimum=#1\fi%
\ifnum#1>\beamer@slideinframe\global\beamer@anotherslidetrue\beamer@localanotherslidetrue\fi%
\ifnum#2>\beamer@slideinframe\global\beamer@anotherslidetrue\beamer@localanotherslidetrue\fi%
\ifnum#1>\beamer@slideinframe\else\ifnum#2<\beamer@slideinframe\else\gdef\beamer@doifnotinframe{\beamer@doifinframe}\fi\fi%
\ifnum\beamer@slideinframe=#1\relax\slidereferenced\fi%
\ifnum\beamer@slideinframe=#2\relax\slidereferenced\fi%
\beamer@@decode}
\def\beamer@decodeone#1,{%
\ifnum#1<\beamer@minimum\global\beamer@minimum=#1\fi%
\ifnum#1>\beamer@slideinframe\global\beamer@anotherslidetrue\beamer@localanotherslidetrue\fi%
\ifnum#1=\beamer@slideinframe\gdef\beamer@doifnotinframe{\beamer@doifinframe}\fi%
\ifnum\beamer@slideinframe=#1\relax\slidereferenced\fi%
\beamer@@decode}
\makeatother
\usepackage[english]{babel}
\mode<presentation>{
\usetheme{Warsaw}
% \setbeamercovered{transparent}
}
\begin{document}
\begin{frame}{Testing}
\mentionedsetup
\uncover<1->{hello}
\uncover<3->{world}
\uncover<5->{greetings}
\uncover<7->{earthlings}
\end{frame}
\begin{frame}{Introduction}{}
\mentionedsetup
\begin{itemize}
\item hello world
\uncover<1->{\item Here is my first point}
\uncover<2->{\item Here is my second point}
\uncover<4->{\item With notes on, I would expect it to take two
clicks to get here from the last point, since there are two notes. But
with them off, I would expect it to take one click.}
\uncover<5->{\item This is my third point. I have four notes about
this point, so with notes on, it should take three more clicks to get
to the next slide. With them off, however, it should take one. }
\end{itemize}
\note[item]<1->{Here is a note about my first point}
\note[item]<2->{Here is a note about my second point}
\note[item]<3->{Here is \textbf{another} note about my second point}
\note[item]<4->{Here is a note about my third point}
\note[item]<5->{Here is the second of several more notes about my
third point}
\note[item]<6->{Another one}
\note[item]<7->{And another}
\end{frame}
\begin{frame}{Another slide}{}
\begin{itemize}
\uncover<1->{\item Not much to say here}
\end{itemize}
\end{frame}
\end{document}
Oh, and we have to redefine the \note command. Even when the notes aren't shown, the command is processed. So we have to redefine it to be a NO-OP to ensure that the resulting overlays aren't read.
Here's the first few frames of the above, showing that frames 2,4,6 get skipped.
I don't know how to extract notes from the original document, but if you accept to work with two files: presentation and notes, the one with notes could be based in sidebyside tcolorboxes where one side is a slide from a previously compiled beamer presentation while you can write notes on the other side.
Following code defines \mypage environment with one default and one mandatory parameters. The default is the name of your presentation file (change beamer with any other name). The mandatory parameter is the number of the slide that you want to comment. The environment's body will the notes corresponding to the slide. It doesn't matter if notes are long or short, they will fit inside a box and every page will contain as many boxes as possible.
\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[most]{tcolorbox}
\usepackage{lipsum}
\newenvironment{mypage}[2][beamer]{%
\begin{tcolorbox}[%
fonttitle=\bfseries,
title={Notes to slide #2},
sidebyside,
sidebyside align=top seam,
bicolor,
]
\includegraphics[page=#2, width=\linewidth]{#1}
\tcblower}{\end{tcolorbox}}
\begin{document}
\begin{mypage}{1}
This is a short comment
\end{mypage}
\begin{mypage}{2}
\end{mypage}
\begin{mypage}{3}
\lipsum[2]
\end{mypage}
\end{document}
If you don't want to "waste" paper and ink, use a blankest tcolorbox:
\newenvironment{mypage}[2][beamer]{%
\begin{tcolorbox}[%
blankest,
sidebyside,
sidebyside align=top seam,
]
\includegraphics[page=#2, width=\linewidth]{#1}
\tcblower}{\end{tcolorbox}}
Best Answer
Would it be enough if the aspect ratio is automatically determined if or if not you are compiling your notes?
I replaced the deprecated option
notes=onlywith\setbeameroption{show only notes}To deal with the aspect ration, one maybe could take advantage of the fact that you are compiling your slides and the notes separately. My idea is to first compile the slides, let's call the resulting pdf
slides.pdf. Now assuming that every slide has a corresponding notes page, one can replace the preview by a page from the previously compiled slides.To automatically compile everything, you could use a script or an automation tool like arara to automatically compile the following sequence of commands:
(assuming your file is called
test.tex)