RE: Deprecating frames (was RE: Synchronization between SMIL and html)

I almost put in a qualification in my original mail, but did not want to
sound too defensive ;-).

I am not in favor of deprecating frames.  I think that the alternatives
(e.g. using tables for layout and iframes for local documents) are no
better, and in some cases may reduce semantic information. I have recently
been chatting with several users of screen readers and spoken browsers, and
folks involved with digital talking books, and there did not seem to be a
clear consensus about frames being a bad thing. Anyway, I encourage you to
address your comments to the HTML WG (and possibly WAI) at W3C, where this
activity is under discussion.

I personally am beginning to think more about requirements for
"document-sets", including some formalized means of describing correlation
points among the documents (e.g. for referring from a TOC into a document,
and for syncing a TOC based upon a focus of attention in a content
document), and some DOM support for navigating and orienting within
documents based upon the correlation points.  Various ad hoc solutions are
in use, generally leveraging script.  XSLT can help with some aspects of the
problem (e.g. to generate a TOC on the fly from a content document or
doc-set), but this is only mechanical. We need to introduce the semantics of
document-sets so that people can leverage common support on a range of
platforms.

I am just beginning to formulate my ideas here, and need to do some more
research to see what other groups are already doing in this area. I would be
very interested to hear more about your view of this, and use cases or
solutions that you have.

Thanks - Patrick

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Jeff Sussna [mailto:jeff.sussna@quokka.com]
> Sent: Wednesday, February 02, 2000 11:25 AM
> To: Patrick Schmitz; 'Bjorn.Storme@ecom.be'; www-smil@w3.org
> Subject: Deprecating frames (was RE: Synhronisation between smil and
> html)
> 
> 
> Hmm...I think I can understand the motivation behind 
> deprecating frames,
> but...in order to make the leap from document presentation to a truly
> interactive view of data you probably need some notion of 
> views that can
> interact with one another. HTML + frames + javascript has 
> potential as a
> largely data-driven view-based model. I think the reality is that the
> current model could use a lot of refinement, but it would be 
> a shame to see
> the whole thing disappear and to go back to a world where you 
> have to write
> a Java applet to do anything beyond simple document presentation.
> 
> Jeff
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Patrick Schmitz [mailto:pschmitz@microsoft.com]
> Sent: Wednesday, February 02, 2000 10:51 AM
> To: 'Bjorn.Storme@ecom.be'; www-smil@w3.org
> Subject: RE: Synhronisation between smil and html
> 
> 
> Hi Bjorn -
> 
> While SMIL 1 cannot describe the kind of presentation you 
> describe, the SYMM
> working group is current considering approaches to 
> integration of SMIL with
> XHTML and other XML languages. We'll add this use-case the 
> requirements for
> the solutions we consider.
> 
> One issue here is that as HTML evolves (e.g. to XHTML 1.1 and 
> XHTML 2.0),
> there are calls to deprecate frame support. Nevertheless, we 
> still will have
> issues associated with synchronization among several 
> documents in a document
> set (such as the navigation set you describe).
> 
> Patrick
> 
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Bjorn Storme [mailto:Bjorn.Storme@ecom.be]
> > Sent: Wednesday, February 02, 2000 5:40 AM
> > To: www-smil@w3.org
> > Subject: Synhronisation between smil and html
> > 
> > 
> > Hello,
> > 
> > I,ve the following problem, i have a frameset with 3 frames, 
> > in the first
> > frame I have an embedded realplayer that is playing a movie.
> > Now what I want is that when the movie is at 30 sec that in 
> > the second frame
> > some text appears. Is this possible with smil??
> > Now the second issue is that in my third frame I wanna have 
> a Table of
> > Contents, with links to the movie f.e. a link "go to 
> > research" that the
> > movie jumps to second 50.
> > 
> > Storme Bjorn
> > Multimedia Developer
> > 
> > Alcatel E-Com
> > Axxes 51-003
> > Guldensporenpark 10
> > B - 9820 Merelbeke (Gent)
> > 
> > Tel.:   + 32(0)9 272 22 00
> > Fax.:  + 32(0)9 272 22 11
> > GSM: + 32(0)478 36 13 99
> > 
> > Bjorn.Storme@ecom.be
> > www.ecom.be
> > 
> > 
>

Received on Wednesday, 2 February 2000 14:58:21 UTC