Use shortframetitle for list of frames only when defined

Question

I'm creating a list of frames for my beamer presentation as in my previous question, which works like a charm. If a framesubtitle exists, it will be put into the list of frames in favor of the frametitle.

However sometimes the framesubtitle is too long for the list of frames and I want a shorter version, but only the frametitle offers this feature:

\frametitle[short]{long}

I already found out that the \insertshortframetitle does not work and I have to use \beamer@shortframetitle, resulting in:

\documentclass{beamer}

\usepackage{hyperref}

\makeatletter
\newcommand\listofframes{\@starttoc{lbf}}
\makeatother

\makeatletter
\addtobeamertemplate{frametitle}{}{%
    \mode<presentation>
    {
    \only<1>{
    \hypertarget{\insertframetitle}{}%
          \addcontentsline{lbf}{section}{\protect\makebox[2em][l]{%
          \protect\usebeamercolor[fg]{structure}\scriptsize\insertframenumber\hfill}%
          \ifx\beamer@shortframetitle\@empty%
              \ifx\insertframesubtitle\@empty%
                  \scriptsize\protect\hyperlink{F\insertframestartpage}{\insertframetitle}%
              \else%
                  \scriptsize\protect\hyperlink{F\insertframestartpage}{\insertframesubtitle}%
              \fi
          \else
              \scriptsize\protect\hyperlink{F\insertframestartpage}{\beamer@shortframetitle}%
          \fi%
          \par}%
    }
    }
}
\makeatother  

\newcommand{\sectioninlbf}{
\addcontentsline{lbf}{section}{%
        \vspace{0.3\baselineskip}
        \protect\footnotesize%
        \secname\par}%
}

\begin{document}

\begin{frame}
\frametitle{General outline}
\tableofcontents[hideallsubsections]
\end{frame}

\begin{frame}
\frametitle{List of Frames}
\listofframes
\end{frame}

\section{Test section one}\sectioninlbf

\begin{frame}
\frametitle{Title Frame One}
\framesubtitle{Subtitle Frame One}
test
\end{frame}

\section{Test section two}\sectioninlbf
\begin{frame}
\frametitle[Short Subtitle Frame Two]{Title Frame Two}
\framesubtitle{Subtitle Frame Two}
test
\end{frame}
\begin{frame}
\frametitle{Title Frame Three}
\framesubtitle{Subtitle Frame Three}
\uncover<1->{test}
\uncover<2->{test}
\uncover<3->{test}
\end{frame}

\end{document}

This works great as long as I always provide a shortframetitle, but I actually want the following:

if shortframetitle is defined, use it
if not use framesubtitle
only if both are undefined use frametitle

The problem: shortframetitle is always defined, as it equals the frametitle if not further specified. That means if I don't define a shortframetitle it will show the frametitle, but in this case the framesubtitle is preferred. How can I solve this dilemma?

I tried the following: I thought I could use the xstring package and use a string comparison as follows:

\IfStrEq{\beamer@shortframetitle}{\beamer@frametitle}{
    \ifx\insertframesubtitle\@empty%
        \scriptsize\protect\hyperlink{F\insertframestartpage}{\insertframetitle}%
    \else%
        \scriptsize\protect\hyperlink{F\insertframestartpage}{\insertframesubtitle}%
    \fi
  }{
   \scriptsize\protect\hyperlink{F\insertframestartpage}{\beamer@shortframetitle}%
}

But I get bombed with errors. What would be the right way to do is?

off-topic: you don't need to load the hyperref package with beamer — samcarter_is_at_topanswers.xyz, May 22 '18 at 21:04
You should also change \hypertarget{\insertframetitle}{} to \hypertarget{F\insertframestartpage}{} to make the links work. — Mike, May 22 '18 at 21:54
@Mike thanks! I actually do that already, but as I copied my old mwe, that improvement got lost. — Robert Seifert, May 23 '18 at 08:08

samcarter_is_at_topanswers.xyz · Accepted Answer · 2018-05-22T21:58:54.430

Your idea to compare the short frametitle with the frametitle seems to work just fine -- and as Mike pointed out in his comment this can be done without the xstring package.

\documentclass{beamer}

\makeatletter

\newcommand\listofframes{\@starttoc{lbf}}

\addtobeamertemplate{frametitle}{}{%
    \mode<presentation>{%
        \only<1>{%
            \hypertarget{\insertframetitle}{}%
            \ifx\beamer@shortframetitle\beamer@frametitle
                \ifx\insertframesubtitle\@empty%
                    %frametitle - prioritate 3
                    \addcontentsline{lbf}{section}{\protect\makebox[2em][l]{\protect\usebeamercolor[fg]{structure}\scriptsize\insertframenumber\hfill}\insertframetitle\par}%
                \else
                    %framesubstitle - prioritate 2
                    \addcontentsline{lbf}{section}{\protect\makebox[2em][l]{\protect\usebeamercolor[fg]{structure}\scriptsize\insertframenumber\hfill}\insertframesubtitle\par}%
                \fi
            \else
                %short title - prioritaet 1
                \addcontentsline{lbf}{section}{\protect\makebox[2em][l]{\protect\usebeamercolor[fg]{structure}\scriptsize\insertframenumber\hfill}\beamer@shortframetitle\par}%
            \fi
        }%
    }%
}
\makeatother  

\newcommand{\sectioninlbf}{%
    \addcontentsline{lbf}{section}{%
        \vspace{0.3\baselineskip}
        \protect\footnotesize%
        \secname\par%
    }%
}

\begin{document}

\begin{frame}
\frametitle{General outline}
\tableofcontents[hideallsubsections]
\end{frame}

\begin{frame}
\frametitle{List of Frames}
\listofframes
\end{frame}

\section{Test section one}\sectioninlbf

\begin{frame}
\frametitle{Title Frame One}
\framesubtitle{Subtitle Frame One}
test
\end{frame}

\section{Test section two}\sectioninlbf

\begin{frame}
\frametitle[Short Subtitle Frame Two]{Title Frame Two}
\framesubtitle{Subtitle Frame Two}
test
\end{frame}

\begin{frame}
\frametitle{Title Frame Three}
\framesubtitle{Subtitle Frame Three}
\uncover<1->{test}
\uncover<2->{test}
\uncover<3->{test}
\end{frame}

\end{document}

Simply replacing \ifx\beamer@shortframetitle\@empty with \ifx\beamer@shortframetitle\beamer@frametitle would have worked too, no need for xstring. — Mike, May 22 '18 at 21:52
@Mike Thanks for the suggestion, that is indeed much simpler! If you'd like to post this as your own answer, I will happily revert my edit. — samcarter_is_at_topanswers.xyz, May 22 '18 at 21:59

Use shortframetitle for list of frames only when defined

1 Answers1