Why does replacing <+-> with <2-> create a second slide?

Question

The document

\documentclass{beamer}

\begin{document}

\begin{frame}

  \begin{block}{First Block}
    Some text.
  \end{block}

  \onslide<2->
  \begin{block}{Second Block}
    More Text
  \end{block}
\end{frame}

\end{document}

Only produces one slide. Changing \onslide<+-> to \onslide<2-> produces two slides. Why is this?

Does https://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/154521/relative-overlay-specification-in-beamer/154527#154527 help? — Joseph Wright, Jan 24 '19 at 20:16

score 3 · Answer 1 · answered Jan 25 '19 at 05:18

I quote the section 9.6.4 Incremental Specifications of 3.55 manual (page 91):

The effect of the +sign is the following: You can use it in any overlay specification at any point where you would usually use a number. If a +sign is encountered, it is replaced by the current value of the LATEX counter beamerpauses, which is 1 at the beginning of the frame.

Then:

when you write \onslide<+->, it is replaced by \onslide<1->which does not create an additional frame.
when you write \onslide<2->, this creates a second frame.
if you wrote \onslide<3->, there would then be a third frame.

Why does replacing <+-> with <2-> create a second slide?

1 Answers1