Multimedia on Linux Re: Web Site

[rnd@sampo.karelia.ru]

On Sat, 10 Jul 1999, Malonowa wrote:

>It should be easy to knock out a simple hyperstudio type program in
>TCL/TK quite easily. I know you'd have to download dlls to install on
>Windows etc. but you'd have to download the software anyway so what's
>the problem there?
>
>We seem to be getting into these discussions about multimedia authoring
>tools but wouldn't it be better to talk about multimedia content first
>and then decide what to write to facilitate it. I was always taught that
>you write a program based on your data and not the other way around.

This is where pain begins. There is a need  to  accept  several
open multimedia formats/protocols to be  supported.  So,  there
need be no content worry  yet.  Let  the  designer  have  text,
photo/picture i/o, video i/o, sound i/o and easy GUI handling -
and that is universal enough to create most multimedia.

What do we have (open, please correct me):

                format                       editor
(rich) text:    HTML, SGML                   many
pic,photo:      JPEG, p?m, xpm               GIMP, ...
drawing:        fig, latex, eps (?)          xfig, tgif, ...
video:          ? avi, mpeg                  ?
sound:          wav, au, ...                 ?
Logic handling: C, C++, Perl, ...            any text editor
GUI handling:   Tcl/Tk, Perl/Tk, Gtk, Java   VisualTcl, Glide, ...
        - but I dream about something
        as simple as HyperCard 
        with card-oriented design


So, almost all components are there. The only problems  are  to
find a way (1) to put them together (2) to  have  an  authoring
program which will concentrate author's  attention  on  content
and not on technical things...

I am  especially  worried  on  how  to  synchronize  sound  and
animation. However, I never programmed for X, so my worry could
be just my ignorance.


Sincerely yours, Roman Suzi
--
Russia * Karelia * Petrozavodsk * rnd@rsuzi.pgu.karelia.ru