10 KiB
UI parity with PowerPoint
Last reviewed: 2026-10-10 · Last updated: 2026-10-12 · Change: minor (off-slide objects in Normal view, #270) · Target: Microsoft PowerPoint for Mac 16.113 (Microsoft 365)
Last reviewed: 2026-10-12 · Last updated: 2026-10-12 · Change: minor (text editing keys observed in PowerPoint for Windows, #268) · Target: Microsoft PowerPoint for Mac 16.113 (Microsoft 365)
How DeckCraft looks and feels next to PowerPoint: the shell, the ribbon, menus, panes, dialogs,
direct manipulation, keyboard and precision. Observations of PowerPoint are kept locally in
plan/powerpoint/01-observed-ui.md and menu-tree.txt (gitignored, clean-room rules in
AGENTS.md §2). Dimension score: ~60% ready (estimated), 30–50 h to parity.
Shell
| Element | PowerPoint for Mac | DeckCraft | Gap |
|---|---|---|---|
| Title bar: AutoSave, Home, Save, Undo/Redo, document title, Share, search | yes | yes, no Share (cloud) | #71 macOS window controls misaligned |
| Native macOS menu bar (File, Edit, View, Insert, Format, Arrange, Tools, Slide Show, Window, Help) | yes | no (menus::menu_tree() is defined but not installed) |
3–5 h |
| Menu-bar items with a DeckCraft equivalent | 217 app-specific items | 128 matched by name (59%, heuristic lower bound) | See target-app-parity.md |
| Ribbon tabs: Home, Insert, Draw, Design, Transitions, Animations, Slide Show, Record, Review, View | 10 | 10 | Record tab is a placeholder |
| Contextual tabs: Shape Format, Picture Format, Table Design, Table Layout, Chart Design, Chart Format, Video/Audio Format and Playback | yes | most; checklist P0 row partial | Chart Format, media tabs thinner |
| Start screen: new, themes, templates, recent, open | yes | yes, thin (#17 broken layout, #76 missing overlay) | 3–5 h |
| Status bar: slide counter, language, notes, comments, views, zoom slider | yes | yes | |
| Command search (Tell Me) | yes | command palette | #79 default entry fails |
| Light / dark appearance | follows the system | light or dark; doesn't follow the system (#41) | 1–2 h |
| One window per presentation, New Window, Arrange All | yes | tabs in one window; no New Window | 3–5 h |
| Quick Access Toolbar customization | yes | no | P1 partial |
Panes and dialogs
| Pane / dialog | PowerPoint | DeckCraft |
|---|---|---|
| Format Shape / Picture / Text pane (Fill & Line, Effects, Size & Properties, Picture, Text Box) | full | partial: fill, gradient editor, line, some effects, size; no 3-D, thin picture/texture options |
| Format Background pane | yes | yes |
| Selection Pane | front-most first, groups fold, drag to restack, Bring Forward / Send Backward arrows, Show All / Hide All, eye, padlock (Lock), rename in place | same: drag restacks among siblings (a child stays in its group), Ctrl+click toggles, Shift+click selects a run, arrows / Home / End / F2 / Esc in the list, right-click menu |
| Animation Pane | list + advanced timeline | list, reorder, timing; no timeline |
| Comments pane (threads) | yes | yes |
| Design Ideas (Designer) | yes (cloud) | no |
| Dialogs | ~60 (Font, Paragraph, Bullets and Numbering, Find, Replace, Replace Fonts, Hyperlink, Action Settings, Header and Footer, Slide Size, Set Up Show, Custom Shows, Print, Page Setup, Insert Object, Symbol, Equation, Chart data sheet, SmartArt chooser, Preferences…) | 27 (crates/ui-egui/src/dialogs.rs): Table, Slide Size, Header and Footer, Hyperlink, Set Up Show, Zoom, Comment, Alt Text, Outline, Rename (section, shape, layout), Paragraph, About, Preferences, Export, Symbol, Equation (placeholder), Spelling, Accessibility, Language, Custom Shows, Chart Data, Trim Media, SmartArt chooser, Quit, Notes Pages |
Direct manipulation
| Behaviour | PowerPoint | DeckCraft |
|---|---|---|
| Selection handles, rotation handle, yellow adjustment handles | yes | yes |
| Marquee, Shift/Cmd multi-select, Tab to cycle | yes | yes |
| Objects off the slide: drawn on the area around it in Normal view (full strength, master graphics too), selectable and movable there; clipped in the show, exports and thumbnails | yes | yes (#270) |
| Smart guides (edges, centres, equal spacing) | yes | yes |
| Snap to grid, grid options, drawing guides | yes | gridlines, guides and snap to grid (engine setting); no Grid Options dialog or menu toggle |
| Nudge (arrows), fine nudge (Option+arrows) | yes | yes |
| Shift-constrained move, Option-drag to duplicate | yes | yes |
| Connector glue and rerouting | yes | yes |
| Edit points on freeforms | yes | no |
| Crop handles, crop to shape, aspect ratio | yes | partial |
| Text caret, selection, double/triple click, drag-select | yes | yes; Tab in text boxes ends editing (#78) |
| Exact size/position, lock aspect | yes | yes |
| Rulers with indent markers and tab stops | yes | rulers yes; tab stops partial |
| Context menus on shapes, slides, text, thumbnails | yes | yes, shorter |
| Drag and drop of files and between thumbnails | yes | yes |
| Image paste from the clipboard | yes | macOS yes; Windows and Linux no (#53) |
| Font menu: every installed family with its faces | yes | families yes; only Regular/Bold/Italic faces (#69) |
Keyboard shortcuts
Every common PowerPoint for Mac shortcut is bound (checklist row done): new slide, duplicate, group/ungroup, bold/italic/underline, alignment, font size, list levels, Format Painter, show from start/current, view switching. Not yet: Cmd+F Find opening a find bar on the slide, Option+drag precision without snapping, F6 pane cycling, ribbon KeyTips (Windows).
Text editing keys
Observed black-box in PowerPoint for Windows (Microsoft 365, October 2026) on synthetic text, and
pinned by tests in crates/model/src/words.rs, crates/model/src/edit.rs and
crates/engine/src/tests_keys.rs (#268). Windows and Linux use Ctrl; the Mac uses Option for words
and Cmd for line and text ends (Session::mac_keys).
| Keys | Behaviour |
|---|---|
| Ctrl+Left / Right | Previous / next word stop. A stop is the start of every word, punctuation run, symbol run, tab, line break and CJK character, plus the paragraph's end; spaces belong to the word before them. it's, baz-qux, a-, 3.14, 1,000, 3:45 are one word; e.g., a_b, x@y.com, dogs' are not. Every CJK ideograph, kana and Hangul syllable is a word. Combining marks and emoji sequences never split. With a selection: Right goes on from its end, Left from its start |
| Ctrl+Shift+Left / Right | Moves the selection's moving end by the same stops |
| Ctrl+Up / Down | Start of the paragraph (then of the previous one) / start of the next paragraph (end of the text in the last one); Shift extends |
| Ctrl+Backspace | Deletes back to the previous stop (word plus its trailing spaces); at a paragraph's start joins it to the previous paragraph |
| Ctrl+Delete | Inside a word: the rest of it. On spaces after a word: the spaces and the next word. At a word's start: the word and its spaces. Then smart spacing: spaces left before closing punctuation (ab cd, ef → ab, ef) or at the paragraph's end after a word go; sentence punctuation left touching a word gets a space (cd...ef gh → cd... gh). At a paragraph's end joins the next paragraph |
| Ctrl+Backspace / Delete with a selection | Leave the selection and delete the word part before / after its start |
| Right-to-left paragraph | Left and Right (with or without Ctrl) swap: Left goes forward in the text. Arabic or Hebrew words in a left-to-right paragraph move in logical order |
| Home / End | Start / end of the visual line. End on a wrapped line goes past its trailing space and the caret stays drawn at that line's end; End again stays; Home from there returns to the same line's start |
| Ctrl+Home / End | Start / end of the text; Shift extends |
| Ctrl+Shift+> / <, Ctrl+] / [ | Next / previous size in the font size list (18 → 20 → 24) |
| Ctrl+B / I / U, Ctrl+Space | With a caret strictly inside a word, the whole word (without trailing spaces); at a word's edge, only what is typed next |
| Ctrl+E / L / R / J | Center / left / right / justify the paragraphs in the selection |
| Shift+F3 | Cycles lowercase → Capitalize Each Word → UPPERCASE → lowercase; other mixes go to UPPERCASE first. A caret in a word changes that word and moves to its start |
| Shift+Enter | Line break |
| Double-click / triple-click | The word without its trailing spaces (a CJK character on its own) / the paragraph including its paragraph mark |
Quirks kept on purpose because PowerPoint has them: Ctrl+Left (not Ctrl+Right) also stops at each no-break or ideographic space, and treats an emoji followed by punctuation as one word. Tab, Shift+Tab and Alt+Shift+arrows in text are handled elsewhere (#78, #93).
Visual fidelity
Colours, spacing, ribbon card and tab geometry follow the observations in
plan/powerpoint/01-observed-ui.md; icons are original (~240, drawn in code or Lucide) and must not
imitate Microsoft's. No pixel comparison against PowerPoint screenshots has been run since
2026-10-07. Cross-app icon consistency is open (#73, #56).
Estimates
| Work | Hours |
|---|---|
Native macOS menu bar from menu_tree(), filled out to PowerPoint's menu items |
3–5 |
| Format Shape pane depth | 6–10 |
| Missing dialogs (Font, Bullets and Numbering, Find/Replace, Replace Fonts, Action Settings, Print, Insert Object) | 8–14 |
| Start screen, window chrome, system appearance, palette fixes (#17, #41, #71, #76, #79) | 4–7 |
| Grid Options, edit points UI, crop depth | 4–7 |
| Multiple windows | 3–5 |
| A screenshot comparison pass on the most-used tabs | 2–4 |
| Total | ~30–52 |
Revision history
| Date | Change | Summary |
|---|---|---|
| 2026-10-12 | minor | Off-slide objects drawn and editable around the slide in Normal view (#270) |
| 2026-10-12 | minor | Selection Pane matched to PowerPoint (#133): drag and drop, arrows, groups, eye, Lock |
| 2026-10-12 | minor | Text editing keys: Ctrl+arrows, Ctrl+Backspace/Delete, Ctrl+Up/Down, Home/End on wrapped lines, Shift+F3, font size keys, as observed in PowerPoint for Windows (#268) | | 2026-10-10 | major | Created: shell, panes and dialogs, direct manipulation, shortcuts and visual fidelity against PowerPoint 16.113 |