From: Kittyfox RealAdmin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: <Switch> and functionality
Greetings,
I'm fairly new to the list, but I've come across a few things of note
that I'd like to check out with people. First off is a behavior problem,
as I see it. Snippets as follows:
<smil>
<head>
...snip...
<meta name="base" content="rtsp://realserver.kittyfox.net/"/>
...snip...
<img src="/graphics/wkfc-on-demand.gif" region="image"
fill="freeze">
<anchor href="MusicVideos/index.smil"
coords="10,120,145,145"/>
<anchor href="Commercials/index.smil"
coords="13,160,140,185"/>
<anchor href="Songs/index.smil"
coords="226,123,290,150"/>
<anchor href="Albums/index.smil"
coords="225,160,303,183"/>
</img>
...remainder snipped...
I've found this works very well in creating an 'imagemap' kind of setup,
much like html has. There's a picture, and it lays out with 4 hotspots
over words for each of the catagories of the site. Connecting to the from
within RA (G2 and v7) to the rtsp:// port works great. Does what it
should. I wanted to link it to my web page so that people wouldn't have to
do more than browse over to the site. Here's where the problem begins.
The webbrowser gets the smil file from the webserver (webserver
instructing it that this is MIME type application/smil, and launch RA to
play). RA opens, displays the page great. It has located all it's pictures
and the text banner on it. Try to click on any of the hotspots. It tries
to reference it locally from where the browser told it to open from,
ignoring the meta base statement in the header.
Absolute pathnames work fine in the smil source, allowing the page to be
viewable via the realserver and the webserver. However, seeing as how the
anchor tag has problems referencing relative to a source, I felt I should
mention it. If this has already been brought up before, applogies, and
point me towards the archived article.
The second point I have is the <switch> statement. As it is, this can be
quite powerfull in scripting between different languages and such like
that. However, I can see where it could use more flushing out. I would
absolutely LOVE the ability to do such things as test for file existance
within the realserver (ex: a live stream which is not always on). If you
try to go to an smil page I've come up with for our live streams when
no stream exists, RA will error and fail to load the page. Using a switch
statement to verify the stream's presence and allowing you to load an
alternate sound clip or graphic would be so usefull.
I can come up with other examples, but I leave the option open for
anyone else that wants to brainstorm on it. Personally, with an embedded
decision making tags such as <switch>, SMIL could be used as a powerfull
tool for scripting multimedia links. Feedback on this is appreciated.
- Chris Wroten
Kittyfox Communications RealAdmin
*******************************************************
The RealForum is an email discussion group focused on using RealNetworks
products. The RealForum is a place to post messages about the best methods
for creating content using RealNetworks technologies and the planning and
implementation of streaming-media web sites. Archives of RealForum can
be found at http://realforum.real.com
If you ever want to remove yourself from this mailing list,
you can send mail to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> with the following
command in the body of your email message:
unsubscribe realforum
or from another account, besides the address you subscribed with:
unsubscribe realforum <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
