Demoing a Mac app at a meetup or conference
To demo a Mac app well at a meetup or conference, prepare the Mac as carefully as the talk. Turn on Do Not Disturb, clear the desktop, mirror your display so you and the room see the same thing, make text and the pointer big enough for the back row, and make your keys and clicks visible so people can follow what your hands do. Then decide in advance what happens when you have to type a password.
Here is the setup, step by step, with a checklist to run ten minutes before you go on.
The night before: a demo setup you can return to
The safest demo Mac is one that only does the demo. Make a separate user account for it in System Settings, under Users & Groups. It starts clean: no chat apps signing in, no browser history, no bookmarks with client names, no wallpaper you would rather not explain. Sign in to the app you are showing, load demo data, and leave it there for next time.
If a second account is not practical, tidy your own:
- Clear the desktop. In System Settings, choose Desktop & Dock and, under Show Items, turn off On Desktop. Your files stay where they are; they just stop showing on the desktop.
- Stop the wallpaper click. In the same pane, set Click wallpaper to reveal desktop to Only in Stage Manager. Otherwise one stray click on the wallpaper during the demo sweeps every window off the screen.
- Hide the Dock with Automatically hide and show the Dock, also in Desktop & Dock, if your app needs the full height of the screen.
- Close browser tabs you do not need, and reset the app to the state the demo starts from.
Run the whole demo twice, start to finish, with everything set up the way it will be on stage. Then plan for the venue Wi-Fi failing: a demo that works offline, or a phone hotspot you have tested.
Pack a USB-C to HDMI adapter and your charger. Venues usually have a cable; they do not always have the right end.
Silence everything that can pop up
A notification on a projector is read by the whole room before you can dismiss it.
- Open Control Center, click Focus and turn on Do Not Disturb.
- In System Settings, choose Notifications and make sure Allow notifications when mirroring or sharing the display is off.
- Quit Messages, Mail, Slack and any app that shows banners or asks to update itself.
If you turned on typing sounds in Typebar for recordings, set Sound to Off in its Sounds settings, or switch to a profile without them. If the Mac sends sound over the venue’s cable, every key press could come out of the room’s speakers.
Mirror the display, and size things for the back row
For a live demo, mirror your display. You and the room see the same picture, so you can look at your own screen instead of turning around to the projector. Extended display suits slides with presenter notes, but in a demo it means dragging the app to a screen you cannot see. In System Settings > Displays, select the projector, open its Use as menu and choose the Mirror for item that names your built-in display.
Mirroring brings one catch: the projector is often lower resolution than your Mac’s display, and the picture is squeezed to fit. Text that is comfortable on your laptop can be unreadable at the back. Before the talk:
- In Displays, pick a size toward Larger Text.
- Zoom your app’s content: Command-Plus in Safari and Chrome, View > Bigger in Terminal.
- Make the pointer bigger in System Settings > Accessibility > Display, with Pointer size.
- Turn on Use keyboard shortcuts to zoom in Accessibility > Zoom, so Option-Command-8 (⌥⌘8) turns zoom on and off, and Option-Command-Equals (⌥⌘=) and Option-Command-Minus (⌥⌘-) zoom in and out when you need to show a detail.
Screen sharing to a big room: what to make bigger on your Mac goes through each of these. If you can, plug in during the break before your slot and look from the back row.
Let the room see your hands
A demo full of shortcuts looks like magic from the audience. Windows jump, panels open, and nobody knows what you pressed. Saying it out loud helps (“I press Command-K to add a link”), but under pressure most presenters forget.
Typebar shows it for you. Press Control-Option-Command-K (⌃⌥⌘K), or triple-tap fn, to show the overlay, and choose what the room sees from Show in its menu bar menu:
- Pill Only for most demos. Each shortcut appears as keys with the name it has in your app’s own menus, such as “⌘K Insert Link”. People see the action, not just the keys.
- Keyboard and Pill if the talk is about shortcuts, so the room sees where each key is as well.
Each mode has its own size and place, so make it large for the room and drag it by its handle to a spot your app does not use. The ready-made Presenting profile is a starting point, and a profile can switch on by itself when your app comes to the front.
For the pointer, click ripples show every click, a cursor halo keeps the pointer easy to find, and Spotlight dims everything except a circle around the pointer when you want the room to look at one thing. Spotlight the pointer during a presentation on a Mac covers when each one helps.
Passwords and private typing on stage
The easiest password to protect is the one you never type. Use a demo account, sign in before the talk, and let a password manager or Touch ID fill anything you cannot avoid.
When you do type something private, the overlay should not repeat it in large letters:
- Password fields. When macOS marks a field as secure, Typebar shows nothing you type, and the pill says “Typing hidden in a password field”.
- Password apps. Nothing typed shows while 1Password, Bitwarden, Keychain Access or Passwords is in front, and you can add apps of your own. Shortcuts and special keys still show.
- Hide letters, in the Privacy settings, is made for live demos: shortcuts and special keys show, and letters show as dots. Useful when you type an email address or an API key into an ordinary field.
- Pause. Choose it from the menu bar menu, or set a Pause shortcut in the Privacy settings, and nothing shows or plays until you choose Resume.
Hide what you type but keep shortcuts visible in a recording explains how these fit together.
The ten-minute checklist
| Check | Where |
|---|---|
| Charger plugged in | The wall, not the laptop bag |
| Do Not Disturb on | Control Center > Focus |
| Chat and mail apps quit | ⌘Q in each |
| Display mirrored, text sized for the back row | System Settings > Displays |
| Pointer size up | Accessibility > Display |
| Demo account signed in, data reset | Your app |
| Overlay showing, sounds off, Hide letters on if needed | Typebar’s menu and settings |
| Wi-Fi fallback ready | Phone hotspot or offline demo |
Typebar is $9 once for up to five Macs, with a free 24-hour trial, so you can rehearse with it the evening before.
Questions
Should I mirror or extend my display for a live demo?
Mirror. You see exactly what the room sees and never have to turn around. Extend only if you also need private presenter notes from Keynote or PowerPoint.
How do I stop notifications during a presentation on a Mac?
Turn on Do Not Disturb from Control Center > Focus, and check that Allow notifications when mirroring or sharing the display is off in System Settings > Notifications.
How can the audience see which shortcuts I press?
Say them out loud, and show them on screen with a keystroke overlay such as Typebar. On a projector, the overlay appears as part of your mirrored screen.
What if I have to type a password during the demo?
Avoid it with a demo account and autofill. If you must, Typebar hides typing in secure password fields and in password apps, and Hide letters turns every letter into a dot.