[Tex/LaTex] I need a beamer theme simulating blackboard presentation

beamerthemes

I always remember the school days, when the teacher used to write on a blackboard. I want to revive the feel of "blackboard" teaching in one of my presentation. But I do not know how to customize the existing theme or create a new one.
The black board theme should have

  1. Slightly grayed out background.
  2. Date on left upper corner (I remember the monitor/ class room captain) used to put date there – to occupy the corner creating a sort of triangle.
  3. Hand-writing font. (Should be legible off course!)
  4. The animation as if someone is writing there but fast enough to justify electronic presentation.
    Other standard beamer things.

May be someone like the idea and help.

Best Answer

Based on the example found here: https://www.writelatex.com/20113zpkgkf#/1569932/

So far, it only deals with the following topics:

1) Slightly greyed out background.

2) Date on left upper corner (I remember the monitor/ class room captain) used to put date there - to occupy the corner creating a sort of triangle.

3) Hand-writing font. (Should be legible off course!)

5) There should be some chalk powder remaining after the board is cleaned

Answer to 1) To get a more realistic blackboard look, the original wallpaper can be replaced by e.g. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Black%28green%29board.jpg.

Answer to 2) The date was inserted by defining a custom headline with the short version of the date in order to not occupy too much space. The long version is displayed on the title page

Answer to 3) Nothing to do, the great example already took care of this :)

Answer to 5) In the updated version of this answer, the remaining chalk powder is realised by randomly placing a semi-transparent picture of a paintstroke. (http://i.stack.imgur.com/KDHds.png)

\documentclass{beamer}

\usepackage{calc}
\usepackage{ifthen}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage{emerald}
\usepackage{tikz}
\usepackage{pgf}
\usepackage{pgffor}

% set text colors for different objects
\setbeamercolor{frametitle}{fg=white}
\setbeamercolor{structure}{fg=white}
\setbeamercolor{normal text}{fg=white}
\setbeamercolor{alerted text}{fg=white}
\setbeamercolor{example text}{fg=white}

%% set fonts
\setbeamerfont{frametitle}{size=\Huge, series=\ECFAugie}
\setbeamerfont{framesubtitle}{size=\large, series=\ECFAugie}
\setbeamerfont{title}{size=\huge, series=\ECFAugie}
\setbeamerfont{author}{size=\large}
\setbeamerfont{date}{size=\large}
\setbeamerfont{institute}{size=\large}
\setbeamerfont{caption}{series=\ECFAugie}

%% Green Background Colour
\setbeamercolor{background canvas}{bg=green!20!black}

%% Random Dust Trails
\pgfmathsetseed{\number\pdfrandomseed} % seed for random generator
\setbeamertemplate{background}{
    \begin{tikzpicture}
        \useasboundingbox (0,0) rectangle (\the\paperwidth, \the\paperheight); 
      \foreach \i in {1,...,30} {
            \pgfmathsetmacro{\x}{random(0,10000)/5000-1}%
            \pgfmathsetmacro{\y}{random(0,10000)/10000-0.1}%
            \pgfmathsetmacro{\r}{random(0,10000)/1000-5}%
            \rotatebox{\r}{
                \pgftext[at=\pgfpoint{\x\paperwidth}{\y\paperheight}, left, base]{\includegraphics[width=\textwidth]{paintstroke.png}}
            }
        }; 
    \end{tikzpicture}
}

%% use a small dash ('-') for a bulletpoint list
\setbeamertemplate{itemize item}{\usebeamercolor[fg]{item}\small\ECFAugie{-}}

%% Frametitle
\setbeamertemplate{frametitle}{
    \begin{beamercolorbox}{frametitle}
        \vskip17pt
        \usebeamerfont{frametitle}
        \insertframetitle \\
        \usebeamerfont{framesubtitle}\insertframesubtitle
    \end{beamercolorbox}
}

%% remove navigation symbols
\setbeamertemplate{navigation symbols}{}

%% Date in the Corner
\setbeamertemplate{headline}{
    \rotatebox{30}{
        \ifx\insertdate\empty\else        
            \hspace*{0.25cm}\ECFAugie\insertshortdate\hspace*{0.5cm}
        \fi
    }
    \vspace*{-1cm}
}

\title{The Theory of Everything}
\author{A. Einstein}
\date[14/3/14]{March 14, 2014}
\institute{University of Magratea}

\begin{document}

% set handwritten font
\ECFAugie

\begin{frame}[plain]
    \maketitle
\end{frame}

\begin{frame}[t]
    \frametitle{Testpage}
    \begin{itemize}
        \item Bla
        \item Bla
        \item Blub
    \end{itemize}
\end{frame}

\end{document}

enter image description here

Open topics

4) The animation as if someone is writing there but fast enough to justify electronic presentation. Other standard beamer things.

Apparently this is possible, see Typewriter Animation Using the 'Animate' Package. But I personally don't think that the audience gains anything by this kind of animation, so I won't add it to this template.

Previous Version

\documentclass{beamer}

\usepackage{beamerthemeblackboard}
\usepackage{graphics}

\setbeamertemplate{headline}{
    \rotatebox{30}{
        \ifx\insertdate\empty\else        
            \hspace*{0.25cm}\ECFAugie\insertshortdate\hspace*{0.5cm}
        \fi
    }
    \vspace*{-1cm}
}

\title{The Theory of Everything}
\author{A. Einstein}
\date[14/3/14]{March 14, 2014}
\institute{University of Magratea}

\begin{document}

% set handwritten font, necessary packages are loaded in beamerthemeblackboard.sty
\ECFAugie

\begin{frame}[plain]
    \maketitle
\end{frame}

\begin{frame}[t]
    \frametitle{Testpage}
    \begin{itemize}
        \item Bla
        \item Bla
        \item Blub
    \end{itemize}
\end{frame}

\end{document}

enter image description here

Edit April 2018:

In order to simulate the typical readability of text on blackboards, I suggest the DarwinFont which is available from https://www.wtnschp.be/wetenschap/natuur/biologie/darwin-day-on-the-origin-of-the-darwin-font/

% !TeX TS-program = xelatex
\documentclass{beamer}

\usepackage{fontspec}
\usepackage{calc}
\usepackage{ifthen}
\usepackage{tikz}
\usepackage{pgf}
\usepackage{pgffor}

% set text colors for different objects
\setbeamercolor{frametitle}{fg=white}
\setbeamercolor{structure}{fg=white}
\setbeamercolor{normal text}{fg=white}
\setbeamercolor{alerted text}{fg=white}
\setbeamercolor{example text}{fg=white}

\usefonttheme{serif}

%% Green Background Colour
\setbeamercolor{background canvas}{bg=green!20!black}

% use a small dash ('-') for a bulletpoint list
\setbeamertemplate{itemize item}{\usebeamercolor[fg]{item}\small -}

%% Frametitle
\setbeamertemplate{frametitle}{
    \begin{beamercolorbox}{frametitle}
        \vskip17pt
        \usebeamerfont{frametitle}
        \insertframetitle \\
        \usebeamerfont{framesubtitle}\insertframesubtitle
    \end{beamercolorbox}
}

%% remove navigation symbols
\setbeamertemplate{navigation symbols}{}

%% Date in the Corner
\setbeamertemplate{headline}{
    \rotatebox{30}{
        \ifx\insertdate\empty\else        
            \hspace*{0.25cm}\insertshortdate\hspace*{0.5cm}
        \fi
    }
    \vspace*{-1cm}
}

%% Random Dust Trails
\setbeamertemplate{background}{
    \begin{tikzpicture}
        \useasboundingbox (0,0) rectangle (\the\paperwidth, \the\paperheight); 
      \foreach \i in {1,...,30} {
            \pgfmathsetmacro{\x}{random(0,10000)/5000-1}%
            \pgfmathsetmacro{\y}{random(0,10000)/10000-0.1}%
            \pgfmathsetmacro{\r}{random(0,10000)/1000-5}%
            \rotatebox{\r}{
                \pgftext[at=\pgfpoint{\x\paperwidth}{\y\paperheight}, left, base]{\includegraphics[width=\textwidth]{paintstroke.png}}
            }
        }; 
    \end{tikzpicture}
}

\title{The Theory of Everything}
\author{A. Einstein}
\date[14/3/14]{March 14, 2014}
\institute{University of Magratea}

\setmainfont{DarwinFont} 

\begin{document}

\begin{frame}[plain]
    \maketitle
\end{frame}

\begin{frame}[t]
    \frametitle{Testpage}
    \begin{itemize}
        \item Bla
        \item Bla
        \item Blub
    \end{itemize}
\end{frame}

\end{document}

enter image description here

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