SMIL = Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language

SMIL is a W3C standard similar to HTML. It is a tag-language, one of many in the XML family. Different from HTML, it is case-sensitive, and pretty much everything should be lower case!

SMIL Features

SMIL is used to integrate different kinds of media into a coherent time-based presentation. All media have to be created separately — SMIL just controls their playback! Its tasks can be split into the following areas:

• layout: definition of areas for video, images, text
• source media: the building blocks for the presentation
• timing: start/end or duration for each media clip
• interactivity: hyperlinks, anchors, imagemaps
• switches: select streams depending on external factors

Creating SMIL

SMIL is a tag-based language similar to HTML, so you can write it with a plain text editor such as Windows Notepad . Better are HTML tag-editors that allow you to specify your own set of tags, such as Notetab Pro, Macromedia Homesite, or Arachnophilia. Having a set of tags predefined speeds up development of SMIL materials dramatically if you do this often.

There are a few visual editors for SMIL, which allow dragging rectangles to specify the layout-regions visually. They also include a timeline tool where you can indicate what stream should play at which time in the overall presentation.

• Easy to use: Fluition
• Structure-oriented: Oratrix GRiNS

SMIL Syntax

Sample: A complex sample file, demonstrating various features.

RealPix, RealText, etc.

RealNetworks has created some proprietary languages to create streaming image shows (RealPix), streaming text (RealText), and even streaming 3D-text with animation effects (RealText3D). Some simple RealPix effects are created by tools such as RealSlideshow and RealPresenter. To fully learn these languages, it is best to refer to RealNetworks' own documentation. See the SMIL samples page for ideas what to do with these.

• RealPix authoring guide
• RealText authoring guide

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