Re: Crawling info displays and slide shows
kevin@scic.intel.com (Kevin Altis)
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Date: Sun, 3 Oct 1993 21:17:13 -0800
To: www-talk@nxoc01.cern.ch
From: kevin@scic.intel.com (Kevin Altis)
Subject: Re: Crawling info displays and slide shows
Cc: sanders@bsdi.com
>> I want to be able to deliver a pageful of text to the user, and after a
>> timeout send the subsequent page. If I follow this, you want to
>> relocate the functionality to the client side from the server.
>Yep, because that's where it belongs. It certainly doesn't belong in the
>transport system.
>
>> I don't understand how this "clutters" the language. Can't the
>> HTML document metaphor embrace temporal aspects?
>#1 Controlling temporal aspects of anything is very complex (thus the
> dearth of useful multimedia protocols and formats). Ever try to
> play an MPEG back at normal speed?
>#2 It's much easier for the client to drive a simple system than it is
> to invent ever more complex protocols. I already showed you how you
> could this on the client end today using NCSA Mosaic. There is even
> software (the "slideshow" stuff that was just posted) that does it.
Please don't add anything to the HTML language or HTTP protocol to
specifically support "temporal" aspects. A simple modification of the
existing slideshow script allows you to handle most time based events with
XMosaic and the same kind of control will be possible with Mac and Windows
clients in the near future (though how near is up to the developers ;-)
The client display software will never be able to do everything, so as long
as the client supports some simple control mechanisms we can write
elaborate software to do the actual controlling.
ka