Re: (X)HTML5 + SMIL?

Hey Greg,

My opinion of the matter is this:

SMIL is a standard which has many similar characteristics of working w/ HTML
(i.e. it's a declarative markup language used to reference files), but
lacking any of the things that helped gain mindshare and standardization
amongst developers and designers that HTML has benefited from.  SMIL needs
up to date open references for developers, it needs something akin to HTML's
ACID testing, it needs more demos/tutorials for designers, and most
importantly standard-adhering players that are freely available for people
to use and test in.  That's regarding the full SMIL Language support.

Aside from that, there needs to be more information about how SMIL relates
to actual implementations of user agents (the fact that the SMIL standard
doesn't define ONE language, but actually a modular set of languages).
 People need to be better aware of the fact that SMIL timing can be
incorporated into other XML languages (XHTML, SVG, etc).

If we want people to use SMIL, we need to be able to succinctly explain what
SMIL is, why one would want to use it, and then give them tools that will
let them get something running in 5 minutes, and enough documentation and
tutorials that they don't get frustrated and give up using those tools in 30
minutes.

I've started in on hacking up some of these tools, but they're all in a
nacent stage, since i'm splitting my time at work between writing
documentation/tools and writing production code for our platform.  Here's a
link to the reference i'm putting together (
http://github.com/videojuicer/smil-reference ).  I've got demos in various
stages of functionality at the moment, and once i sort out hosting, i'll
link them up.  You can also see an SVG map of all the SMIL3 modules:
http://knowtheory.net/modules.xhtml or the same thing in PNG form:
http://knowtheory.net/SMIL_Modules_Functional_Grouping.png

I have thoughts on the HTML5 thing, but i will type that up quickly in a
separate email.

Cheers,

-Ted

On Sat, Mar 6, 2010 at 11:21 AM, Greg Herlein <gherlein@herlein.com> wrote:

> I'd like to know why there has been such slow adoption of SMIL.  For
> me, the problem it solves is that it allows temporal definition in the
> markup language.  The graphical folks grok HTML, but they are not
> going to grok learning JS to make elements appear together, or appear
> in certain sequences at presrived times or in response to certain
> events (clicks, etc).  SMIL defines all of that, yet desptie my
> deamnds for it commercially (I am Dir Engineering for the largest
> retail advertising digital signage company in the world) only a few
> companies have anything that supports it.
>
> I'd love to use the momentum of HTML5 to get more merge.  How can I
> exert influence?  What tasks need to be done on the Engineering side?
> How do we all push this forwrd to obtain the *value* of a standard
> (because unless it's adopted it's a standard of no worth to the
> market).
>
> --------------------------------
> Greg Herlein
> Mobile:  415-368-7546
> Web:      blog.herlein.com
> twitter:  @gherlein
>
>
>
> On Sat, Mar 6, 2010 at 7:01 AM, Ted Han <ted@knowtheory.net> wrote:
> > Thanks David :)  I've run across fakesmil before, but i haven't poked
> around
> > your source yet, i'll just do that now.
> > I'm curious what your experience implementing this in JS has been,
> whether
> > there are particular performance issues you've encountered, or things
> that
> > were particularly difficult that you may have had to hack around or
> > anything?
> > Cheers,
> > -Ted
> > On Sat, Mar 6, 2010 at 9:26 AM, David Leunen <leunen.d@gmail.com> wrote:
> >>
> >>
> >>>
> >>> if anyone has interest in trying to develop a JS based SMIL player.
> >>
> >> I've developed a little JS script that implements most of the animation
> >> module (works with SVG and XHTML) + Timesheets.
> >>
> >> http://leunen.d.free.fr/fakesmile/
> >> It's not complete, but Jeff used to use it successfully on his blog.
> >
> >
>