Beamer - Dresden theme: miniframes appeareance and frame number insertion

Question

I am writing a presentation in Beamer using the Dresden theme. From a theme preview I saw that white circles are supposed to appear on the top bar below the section titles of my presentation (to indicate the number of slides in each frame, I guess). The problem is that they do not appear when I compile my script. Do I have to specify a particular command in order to obtain that?

Moreover, how do I add numbering of the slide progression (with respect to the total amount of slides in the presentation)? For instance, say that I want them to appear in the lower right corner of each slide.

Answer 1

The Dreden theme uses as outer theme miniframes specifying that the footline is of type authorinstitutetitle

\useoutertheme[footline=authorinstitutetitle]{miniframes}

Thus, to insert the frame number (command \insertframenumber) with respect to the total frame number (command \inserttotalframenumber) we should take into account how the authorinstitutetitle is defined:

\def\beamer@theme@footline@authorinstitutetitle{
  \defbeamertemplate*{footline}{miniframes theme}
  {%
    \begin{beamercolorbox}[colsep=1.5pt]{upper separation line foot}
    \end{beamercolorbox}
    \begin{beamercolorbox}[ht=2.5ex,dp=1.125ex,%
      leftskip=.3cm,rightskip=.3cm plus1fil]{author in head/foot}%
      \leavevmode{\usebeamerfont{author in head/foot}\insertshortauthor}%
      \hfill%
      {\usebeamerfont{institute in head/foot}\usebeamercolor[fg]{institute in head/foot}\insertshortinstitute}%
    \end{beamercolorbox}%
    \begin{beamercolorbox}[ht=2.5ex,dp=1.125ex,%
      leftskip=.3cm,rightskip=.3cm plus1fil]{title in head/foot}%
      {\usebeamerfont{title in head/foot}\insertshorttitle}%
    \end{beamercolorbox}%
    \begin{beamercolorbox}[colsep=1.5pt]{lower separation line foot}
    \end{beamercolorbox}
  }
}

Now, in the lower right corner there's nothing thus it is possible to exploit the space in:

\begin{beamercolorbox}[ht=2.5ex,dp=1.125ex,%
   leftskip=.3cm,rightskip=.3cm plus1fil]{title in head/foot}%
   {\usebeamerfont{title in head/foot}\insertshorttitle}%
 \end{beamercolorbox}%

by adding:

\begin{beamercolorbox}[ht=2.5ex,dp=1.125ex,%
      leftskip=.3cm,rightskip=.3cm plus1fil]{title in head/foot}%
      {\usebeamerfont{title in head/foot}\insertshorttitle}%
      \hfill%
      {\usebeamerfont{frame number}\usebeamercolor[fg]{frame number}\insertframenumber~\frameofframes~\inserttotalframenumber}

Notice that as separator between the frame numbers there's a command: \frameofframes. It is defined as:

\newcommand{\frameofframes}{/}
\newcommand{\setframeofframes}[1]{\renewcommand{\frameofframes}{#1}}

This allows you to modify the standard representation (1/5 for example), with something else; for instance:

\setframeofframes{of}

will provide 1 of 5.

The code:

\documentclass{beamer}
\usepackage{lmodern}
\usetheme{Dresden}

\author{My name}
\title{My presentation}
\institute{My institute}

\newcommand{\frameofframes}{/}
\newcommand{\setframeofframes}[1]{\renewcommand{\frameofframes}{#1}}

\setframeofframes{of}
\makeatletter
\setbeamertemplate{footline}
  {%
    \begin{beamercolorbox}[colsep=1.5pt]{upper separation line foot}
    \end{beamercolorbox}
    \begin{beamercolorbox}[ht=2.5ex,dp=1.125ex,%
      leftskip=.3cm,rightskip=.3cm plus1fil]{author in head/foot}%
      \leavevmode{\usebeamerfont{author in head/foot}\insertshortauthor}%
      \hfill%
      {\usebeamerfont{institute in head/foot}\usebeamercolor[fg]{institute in head/foot}\insertshortinstitute}%
    \end{beamercolorbox}%
    \begin{beamercolorbox}[ht=2.5ex,dp=1.125ex,%
      leftskip=.3cm,rightskip=.3cm plus1fil]{title in head/foot}%
      {\usebeamerfont{title in head/foot}\insertshorttitle}%
      \hfill%
      {\usebeamerfont{frame number}\usebeamercolor[fg]{frame number}\insertframenumber~\frameofframes~\inserttotalframenumber}
    \end{beamercolorbox}%
    \begin{beamercolorbox}[colsep=1.5pt]{lower separation line foot}
    \end{beamercolorbox}
  }
\makeatother

\begin{document}

\section{One}
\subsection{One-one}

\frame{\frametitle{X-one} bla bla bla}
\frame{\frametitle{X-one-a} bla bla bla}
\frame{\frametitle{X-one-b} bla bla bla}

\subsection{One-two}

\frame{\frametitle{X-one} bla bla bla}
\frame{\frametitle{X-one-a} bla bla bla}
\frame{\frametitle{X-one-b} bla bla bla}


\section{Two}
\subsection{Two-one}

\frame{\frametitle{X-one} bla bla bla}
\frame{\frametitle{X-one-a} bla bla bla}
\frame{\frametitle{X-one-b} bla bla bla}

\subsection{Two-two}

\frame{\frametitle{X-one} bla bla bla}
\frame{\frametitle{X-one-a} bla bla bla}
\frame{\frametitle{X-one-b} bla bla bla}

\section{Three}
\subsection{Three-one}

\frame{\frametitle{X-one} bla bla bla}
\frame{\frametitle{X-one-a} bla bla bla}
\frame{\frametitle{X-one-b} bla bla bla}

\subsection{Three-two}

\frame{\frametitle{X-one} bla bla bla}
\frame{\frametitle{X-one-a} bla bla bla}
\frame{\frametitle{X-one-b} bla bla bla}

\end{document}

One frame as result: