Proposal 0.0

Hello,

I know it's not Monday, but I've been reading as much as I can in between
work and life, and my mind keeps going back to this bit in the SMIL 2.0
specification:

"Allow reusing of SMIL syntax and semantics in other XML-based languages,
in particular those who need to represent timing and synchronization."

I've been wondering if it would be possible to come up with a better or
simpler (but not /too/ simple) timing model than the folks who worked on
SMIL 1.0 and 2.0, and who've probably put decades of collective man-years
into thinking about this particular problem.

I've nearly decided that it would be difficult (and possibly not the best
use of our time) to effectively reinvent the timing wheel.  What would
using SMIL's well-defined timing model for TT look like?  Maybe something
like:

<seq>
   <tt:p begin="0s" dur="5s">One</tt:p>
   <tt:p dur="10s">Two</tt:p>
   <tt:p begin="1s" dur="5s" class="important">Three</tt:p>
</seq>

"One" displays immediately, at the start of the sequence, and ends 5
seconds later.  (Specifying a begin time of 0 seconds is optional, since
the default begin offset is always 0 seconds.)

"Two" displays 0 seconds (the default) after "First" -- i.e. 5 seconds
into the sequence.  It ends 10 seconds later, at 15 seconds into the
sequence.

"Third" has a begin offset of 1 second, so it begins 1 second after "Two",
and has a duration of 5 seconds, so it ends at 21 seconds into the
sequence.  Visually, it is displayed in the "important" style.

<http://www.w3.org/TR/2001/REC-smil20-20010807/smil20.html#smil-timing>

(If people have scenarios that they'd like me to whip up solutions for
using this timing model, please let me know!)

-- Charles Wiltgen

Received on Thursday, 6 February 2003 00:34:44 UTC