SMIL and HTML+TIME

A group of SYMM folks who attended the HTML WG FtF last week were talking
about how to move forward on the proposals to integrate HTML and SMIL-like
timing and media support.  Of particular concern is that multimedia and
timing be considered primarily by the SYMM group, and that we not have
duplicated effort among the working groups.  Balancing this is a desire to
extend the appropriate subset of SMIL to HTML as soon as possible (time is
of the essence for many applications).

One idea I talked about with several people (Philipp, Ted, Warner, Rob and
Bridie, et al.) is to follow the lead of the HTML and CSS groups, and
modularize SMIL.  The idea is that significant areas of functionality are
separated into modules, and then *profiles* are defined that combine the
appropriate modules for different applications.  The requirement for this
for HTML and CSS is coming from many sources, including the Mobile Computing
and Television&Web communities.  

If we modularize SMIL, we can simply define profiles for SMIL 1.0
applications as well as HTML+TIME applications (and others).  This would
allow us to advance the technology and the standard without the sense of
competition that seems to underlie the current discussion.

The modularization that I proposed divides the functionality into 4 areas:

  - Timing markup

  - Media elements and synchronization markup

  - Conditional delivery controls (switch and test attributes)

  - Layout

SMIL 1.0 would be defined by a profile that included the initial support for
all four modules.  HTML+TIME is a profile that excludes the Layout module.  

With the functionality divided into modules, we can discuss extensions to
the timing module in isolation.  Similarly, we can consider other proposed
extensions (such as the additional features in Ted's proposals).

Thanks - Patrick

Patrick Schmitz
Program Manager
Microsoft

Received on Wednesday, 21 October 1998 13:44:53 UTC