Ned, I may be about to ask a dumb question, but could you help me understand
the relationship between MIME and other approaches to a dynamic interface to
various objects, e.g., HGML?
Let me explain what I mean.
My MIME system allows me to include attachments to an e-mail message, but in
order to examine or "play" those attachments I have to individually select them
and execute the appropriate "viewer". I don't know whether or not MPEG includes
a sound capability or not, but assuming it doesn't, I couldn't synchronize an
audio segment with the MPEG image to lip-synch with a video of a person, on the
waves crashing on a beach, etc.
Likewise, I can include a spreadsheet in my MIME object, but I have no way of
linking the current values of that spreadsheet back into my annual report text.
In other words, MIME doesn't support something like Window's Object Linking
Environment or Dynamic Data Environment, nor does it support HGML's hypertext
links to another object (and back up the stack again.) Of course it does
facilitate these operations by allowing the software to be distributed, but it
doesn't support any kind of triggering mechanims or any direct form of
embedding, so far as I know.
Is my understanding correct, first of all, at least with respect to current
MIME products and standards, and if so, is anyone giving any thought to
extensions along these lines?
Ultimately, I'm envisioning a complex multimedia object that integrates and
synchronizes all of the various components. Maybe it isn't quite as interactive
as a video game, where I might click on a bird and have it fly away, but it
would be nice to have an Acrobat text file with included PostScript pictures
and high quality sound.
I know that BBN is working on Location Independent Information Objects for
ARPA, although I don't know what they are doing in this area, if anything. and
I think that one of the ISO groups is also looking at such complex objects.
I guess I'm asking if there is any kind of an overall vision emerging in this
area?
Bob
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Robert R. Jueneman
GTE Laboratories
40 Sylvan Road
Waltham, MA 02254
Internet: Jueneman(_at_)gte(_dot_)com
FAX: 1-617-466-2603
Voice: 1-617-466-2820