[Timesheets LC comment] General Comments

[Doug Schepers-3]

Dear SYMM WG-

The SVG WG has reviewed SMIL Timesheets 1.0, W3C Working Draft 10
January 2008, http://www.w3.org/TR/2008/WD-timesheets-20080110/ .

We are very interested in SMIL Timesheets, and are pleased by the
functionality that this specification provides.  We believe that this
has a lot of potential in a set of well-defined and common use cases,
specifically photo galleries and slideshows, which are increasingly
being presented on the Web; the functionality this specification
provides will make it much easier to author such content.

While we are sympathetic to moving forward quickly to meet market needs,
and support the approach that this technology lays out, however, we
don't believe this specification itself is in a state suitable for
Candidate Recommendation.  Most obvious are the large sections stricken
through, and there are numerous areas where the normative requirements
are not clear, and several grammatical errors.  We feel that once these
matters are cleared up, though, the specification will be very useful.

It does seem mostly focused on XHTML, in general; SVG can be used for
the same use cases, so we would like you to please include SVG examples
similar to the HTML ones.

Finally, while we understand that this is a simplified subset of SMIL
functionality meant to be immediately implemented in browsers with a
solid market case, we are concerned that it may in places be too simple
for what will be desired, particularly in the areas of transitions and
navigation, and encourage you to lay the groundwork for future extensions.

We have several specific comments and suggestions to follow.  To make it
easier for you to address our comments, we have split them into
individual emails by types or sections.

Regards-
-Doug Schepers, on behalf of the SVG WG

[jose-11]

A small and simple specification is good, better chance to have the whole language implemented.

Opera has a preview of the next gen browser with native Theora and SVG:

http://dev.opera.com/articles/view/a-call-for-video-on-the-web-opera-vid/

First time I saw this, I was impressed, all that was missing was Vorbis audio and SMIL Timesheets.
Timesheets should be able to make fade in and out transitions by animating volume and opacity values on the audio/visual media.

With fade transitions, it's possible to make presentations presentable, the other feature could be added later.

The important thing is that the W3C provide an option for multimedia content other than the prevailing proprietary ones.

SMIL Timesheets, SVG, Theora, Vorbis in a Web browser is a winning combo IMHO :)


Jose Ramirez


Free your Media
'Xiph it'
at xiph.org

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: [Timesheets LC comment] General Comments
From: Doug Schepers <schepers@...>
Date: Sat, March 01, 2008 2:41 pm
To: www-smil@...


Dear SYMM WG-

The SVG WG has reviewed SMIL Timesheets 1.0, W3C Working Draft 10
January 2008, http://www.w3.org/TR/2008/WD-timesheets-20080110/ .

We are very interested in SMIL Timesheets, and are pleased by the
functionality that this specification provides. We believe that this
has a lot of potential in a set of well-defined and common use cases,
specifically photo galleries and slideshows, which are increasingly
being presented on the Web; the functionality this specification
provides will make it much easier to author such content.

While we are sympathetic to moving forward quickly to meet market needs,
and support the approach that this technology lays out, however, we
don't believe this specification itself is in a state suitable for
Candidate Recommendation. Most obvious are the large sections stricken
through, and there are numerous areas where the normative requirements
are not clear, and several grammatical errors. We feel that once these
matters are cleared up, though, the specification will be very useful.

It does seem mostly focused on XHTML, in general; SVG can be used for
the same use cases, so we would like you to please include SVG examples
similar to the HTML ones.

Finally, while we understand that this is a simplified subset of SMIL
functionality meant to be immediately implemented in browsers with a
solid market case, we are concerned that it may in places be too simple
for what will be desired, particularly in the areas of transitions and
navigation, and encourage you to lay the groundwork for future extensions.

We have several specific comments and suggestions to follow. To make it
easier for you to address our comments, we have split them into
individual emails by types or sections.

Regards-
-Doug Schepers, on behalf of the SVG WG