How to modify or create my own slide layouts in Stage?

[Thorsten Zachmann]

Hello Henrik,

On Friday, March 20, 2015 12:07:48 PM Henrik Ingo wrote:
> First, I'd like to congratulate the Calligra developers for getting
> this far with a promising (and actively developed!) open source office
> suite!

Thanks a lot for you kind words.

> It seems you are right now in that agonizing period where the software
> is definitively looking usable, yet documentation is still so scarce I
> sometimes cannot do what I want. (Including searching for
> stackoverflow or other forums.) So I hope this mailing list will help
> me.
> 
> In Stage, is it possible, and how, to create my own slide layouts? For
> example, if I choose the KDE Events teamplate, I can see that in the
> title slide the title text is in the middle of the slide, not at the
> top. How was the slide layout (on the right hand docker) modified to
> do this? Can I create completely new slide layouts?

Unfortunately this is not possible in Stage at the moment. There is no user 
interface that would provide what you need. As far as I know the slide layout 
was created in OpenOffice/LibreOffice. I think it should be possible to create new 
slide layouts there. 

> A related question is, what is the intended functionality of the
> master slides? It looks to me I can essentially define the graphics
> and colors of the background and that's it, whereas text and other
> objects are defined by the slide layout?

Yes the master slide contains content that should be visible on multiple 
slides. I think a master slide can also define which layout a slide should use.

> Finally, in the bottom left plus sign I can apparently add a layer.
> But I don't see anything happening when I do that. What should I
> expect to see?

You need to switch the view to Minimal View or Detailed View to see the 
layers. In the thumbnail views the layers are not visible.

I hope I could have helped you a bit.

Thorsten