Two Beamer mini-frames of different sizes in one frame?

Question

Dearest TeX users, I have not been using LaTeX for a while but need to prepare a Beamer presentation that displays two 'miniframes' for each frame: the first smaller than the second. I have tried playing with minipages but without success---I'm rusty! I attach a schema of the presentation. Could you please show me what I need to add and where to display the two frames in one frame, while making one smaller than the other? See sketch above. Thank you very much in advance. Filippo

\documentclass[english]{beamer}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage[latin9]{inputenc}
\setcounter{secnumdepth}{3}
\setcounter{tocdepth}{3}
\usepackage[authoryear]{natbib}

\makeatletter
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% Textclass specific LaTeX commands.
 % this default might be overridden by plain title style
 \newcommand\makebeamertitle{\frame{\maketitle}}%
 % (ERT) argument for the TOC
 \AtBeginDocument{%
   \let\origtableofcontents=\tableofcontents
   \def\tableofcontents{\@ifnextchar[{\origtableofcontents}{\gobbletableofcontents}}
   \def\gobbletableofcontents#1{\origtableofcontents}
 }

\@ifundefined{date}{}{\date{}}
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% User specified LaTeX commands.
\usetheme{Berlin}
\date{}
\definecolor{White}{RGB}{255,255,255}
\definecolor{Black}{RGB}{30,30,30}
\definecolor{Green}{RGB}{0,255,0}
\setbeamertemplate{footline}[frame number]
\setbeamerfont{section in head/foot}{family=\tt}
\setbeamerfont{author}{family=\tt}
\setbeamerfont{institute}{family=\tt}
\setbeamerfont{structure}{family=\tt}
\setbeamerfont{frametitle}{family=\tt}
\setbeamerfont{page number in head/foot}{family=\tt}
\setbeamerfont{normal text}{family=\tt}
\setbeamerfont{item}{family=\tt}
\setbeamercolor{page number in head/foot}{bg=White,fg=Green}
\setbeamercolor{frametitle}{bg=Black,fg=Green}
\setbeamercolor{structure}{bg=White,fg=Black}

\makeatother

\usepackage{babel}
\begin{document}

\author{\textcolor{black}{BLA}}


\title{\textcolor{green}{BLA}}


\institute{BLA}

\makebeamertitle
\AtBeginSection[]{ \frame<beamer>{ \frametitle{Outline} \tableofcontents[currentsection,subsections] } } \begin{frame}{Outline} \pdfbookmark[0]{Contents}{toc} \tableofcontents{} \end{frame}


\section{Disgust 101}
\begin{frame}{1/4}

\begin{itemize}
\item \texttt{Basic emotion}
\item \texttt{Universal disgust}
\item \texttt{Charles Darwin. The expression of emotions in man and animals. 1872/1892}
\item \texttt{Paul Ekman }\texttt{\emph{et al.}}\texttt{ Emotion in the
human face. 1972}
\end{itemize}
\end{frame}

\begin{frame}{2/4}

\begin{itemize}
\item \texttt{Feral children}
\item \texttt{Lucien Malson and Jean Itard. Wolf children and the problem
of human nature. 1972}
\item \texttt{Non-universality of the disgusting}
\item \texttt{Language}
\item \texttt{Unique to humans (?)}
\item \texttt{Late onset}
\end{itemize}
\end{frame}
\end{document}

Answer 1

With and without block.

\begin{frame}{1/4}
  \hfill
  \begin{minipage}[c]{0.3\linewidth}
    \begin{block}{Small block}
      \begin{itemize}
      \item One
      \item Two
      \end{itemize}
    \end{block}
  \end{minipage}%
  \hfill%
  \begin{minipage}[c]{0.5\linewidth}
    \begin{block}{Large block}
      \begin{itemize}
      \item \texttt{Basic emotion}
      \item \texttt{Universal disgust}
      \item \texttt{Charles Darwin. The expression of emotions in man and animals. 1872/1892}
      \item \texttt{Paul Ekman }\texttt{\emph{et al.}}\texttt{ Emotion in the
          human face. 1972}
      \end{itemize}
    \end{block}
  \end{minipage}
  \hfill
\end{frame}

\begin{frame}{1/4}
  \hfill
  \begin{minipage}[c]{0.3\linewidth}
    \begin{itemize}
    \item One
    \item Two
    \end{itemize}
  \end{minipage}%
  \hfill%
  \begin{minipage}[c]{0.5\linewidth}
    \begin{itemize}
    \item \texttt{Basic emotion}
    \item \texttt{Universal disgust}
    \item \texttt{Charles Darwin. The expression of emotions in man and animals. 1872/1892}
    \item \texttt{Paul Ekman }\texttt{\emph{et al.}}\texttt{ Emotion in the
        human face. 1972}
    \end{itemize}
  \end{minipage}
  \hfill
\end{frame}

An alternative to minipage is the built in environment columns. Then the first of the two slides above can be generated by the following code.

\begin{frame}{1/4}
  \begin{columns}
    \begin{column}{0.3\linewidth}
      \begin{block}{Small block}
        \begin{itemize}
        \item One
        \item Two
        \end{itemize}
      \end{block}
    \end{column}
    \begin{column}{0.5\linewidth}
      \begin{block}{Large block}
        \begin{itemize}
        \item \texttt{Basic emotion}
        \item \texttt{Universal disgust}
        \item \texttt{Charles Darwin. The expression of emotions in man and animals. 1872/1892}
        \item \texttt{Paul Ekman }\texttt{\emph{et al.}}\texttt{ Emotion in the
            human face. 1972}
        \end{itemize}
      \end{block}
    \end{column}
  \end{columns}
\end{frame}

Answer 2

Edited again: For arbitrary combinations of content, I would suggest to define a custom environment, for example like this:

\documentclass{beamer}

\usepackage{tikz, graphicx, environ}

\NewEnviron{subframe}[3][base west]{\node[anchor=#1, draw=black, inner sep=5pt] at (#2) {\begin{minipage}{#3}\BODY\end{minipage}};}

\begin{document}

\begin{frame}\frametitle{A frame with two subframes}

\begin{tikzpicture}

\begin{subframe}{0,1.5in}{2in}

Some text here, as well as an itemized list:
\begin{itemize}
\item one
\item two 
\item three
\end{itemize}

\end{subframe}

\begin{subframe}{1.5in,0in}{2.5in}

Some graphics here:

\includegraphics[scale=0.8,clip,trim=0 0 1.525in 0]{/data/graphics/fun/asterix/switzerland-red-cross}

\end{subframe}

\end{tikzpicture}

\end{frame}

\end{document}

The first mandatory argument of the subframe environment is the coordinate in the tikzpicture, and the optional argument specifies the alignment relative to that position (defaults to base west = bottom left). The second mandatory argument gives the width of the minipage that wraps the content.