Introduction to SMIL

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SMIL Tutorial
SMIL HOME
SMIL Intro
SMIL Files
SMIL HTML
SMIL XHTML
SMIL Timing
SMIL Sequence
SMIL Parallel
SMIL Transitions
SMIL Media
Examples
SMIL Examples
References
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# SMIL Introduction

SMIL is an easy-to-learn HTML-like language for describing audiovisual presentations.

## What You Should Already Know

Before you continue you should have a basic understanding of the following:

- HTML
- XHTML
- XML
- XML namespaces

If you want to study these subjects first, find the tutorials on our Home Page.

## What Is SMIL?

- SMIL stands for Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language
- SMIL is pronounced "smile"
- SMIL is a language for describing audiovisual presentations
- SMIL is easy to learn and understand
- SMIL is an HTML-like language
- SMIL is written in XML
- SMIL presentations can be written using a text-editor
- SMIL is a W3C recommendation

## A Simplified SMIL Example

    <smil>
    <body>
      <seq repeatCount="indefinite">
        <img src="image1.jpg" dur="3s" />
        <img src="image2.jpg" dur="3s" />
      </seq>
    </body>
    </smil>

From the example above you can see that SMIL is an XML based, easy to understand, HTML-like language that can be written using a simple text-editor.

The <smil></smil> tags defines the SMIL document. A <body> element defines the body of the presentation. A <seq> element defines a sequence to display. The repeatCount attribute defines an indefinite loop. Each <img> element has a src attribute to define the image source and a dur attribute to define the duration of the display.

## What Can SMIL Do?

- SMIL can be used to create Internet or Intranet presentations
- SMIL can be used to create slide-show presentations
- SMIL has been described as the Internet answer to PowerPoint
- SMIL presentations can display multiple file types (text, video, audio...)
- SMIL presentations can display multiple files at the same time
- SMIL presentations can display files from multiple web servers
- SMIL presentations can contain links to other SMIL presentations
- SMIL presentations can contain control buttons (stop, start, next, ...)
- SMIL has functions for defining sequences and duration of elements
- SMIL has functions for defining position and visibility of elements

## SMIL is a W3C Recommendation

W3C has been developing SMIL since 1997, as a language for choreographing multimedia presentations where audio, video, text and graphics are combined in real-time.

SMIL became a W3C Recommendation 15. June 1998.

To read more about the SMIL activities at W3C, please read our W3C tutorial.

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