Re: [whatwg] (X)HTML + SMIL?

2008/12/29 Jack Jansen <Jack.Jansen@cwi.nl>

>
> On  27-Dec-2008, at 20:28 , Giovanni Campagna wrote:
>
> I'm sorry you misunderstood my question, that was: has W3C planned any work
> about XHTML2 + SMIL
> Then I presented two use cases (video and animation).
>
>
> The problem with XHTML+SMIL is that it never got into the REC track,
> because there was no second implementation, Microsoft's HTML+TIME is the
> only one. This is a shame, because some of the ways XHTML+SMIL allows reuse
> of SMIL global timing constructs in other languages are pretty neat and
> non-intrusive. The microformats work seems to be built heavily on this (or
> they re-invented the same concepts in parallel), it would be very
> interesting to see if XHTML+SMIL could  be revived in the light of what has
> been done in microformats and other fields in recent years.
>
> Another angle of work that came out of XHTML+SMIL is SMIL Timesheets (
> http://www.w3.org/TR/2008/WD-timesheets-20080110/)<http://www.w3.org/TR/2008/WD-timesheets-20080110/%29>,
> but it takes a different approach: it separates the SMIL containment model
> from the HTML/XML containment model by using selectors to bind the two,
> thereby allowing reuse of the single timing document on multiple similar
> HTML document, similar to stylesheets (hence the name Timesheets).
> Timesheets currently has a similar problem as XHTML+SMIL: it needs some more
> momentum behind it.
>

This idea (Timesheet) is very good, beacuse it resolves a structural
problem, allowing to separate content from presententation from timing from
action, that is XHTML from CSS from SMIL from ES.
But you need to cooperate with the other wg in the interaction domain,
because they're already working on different solution (eg CSS Animation),
which implement a different model. If you want to keep work done until now,
with 3 TRs that successfully reached REC, you need to move quickly.
Also Timesheet will solve issues like applying Timing to a wide number of
element, by using CSS3Selectors, that are widely used and understood.


> The SYMM working group is currently actively investigating the
> possibilities of continuing work on XHTML+SMIL, Timesheets or a combination
> of the two. If people are interested in this area: please join the SYMM WG.
> And (to put a little pressure on:-): please join the working group soon,
> there's decisions to be made that may require a charter extension, and if
> the group decides there's not enough momentum to warrant that commitment, it
> may be years before the chance arises again.
>

I personally cannot join the WG (i'm free in these days because of winter
holidays, the rest of the year I'm quite busy). But I think that people will
like integration of SMIL into existing profiles like XHTML+SVG, allowing to
eventually defeat Adobe Flash monopoly.
Maybe you could join the Compound Document WG: SMIL itself is quite a niche
language, SMIL+XHTML+SVG is the future of web.

Giovanni