The WebDeveloper.com Tutorial: RealSystem G2 & SMIL Part 3

Tutorial: RealSystem G2 & SMIL

Part 3

The process only takes a second, and then you're ready to move on to the next step, creating the RealPix file. You can use almost any text editor to create the RealPix file...I use my old trusty NoteTab Pro, the same tool I use for editing HTML pages.

To learn how to create the RealPix file, I referred to RealNetwork's RealPix Content Creation Guide. The guide is thorough, but it can still is a bit confusing...so I'll try to enlighten you as we go through the process.

The RealPix File
First, every RealPix file starts with the <imfl> tag, and ends with the </imfl> tag--all the actual content is located between these two tags. That is about the only tag with opening and closing elements used in RealPix files. The rest utilize the closing slash at the end of the tag--a standard XML practice (to learn more about XML, read our XML Files column). To help familiarize yourself with the RealPix language, you may want to take a look at the various RealPix tags which are available.

Before getting into the rest of the RealPix file, you'll need to consider if you'll be using an audio track along with the images. If so, it is at this point that you'll want to play the audio track and note (in seconds) at which point you want the images to be presented. This will greatly help you later in the creation process.

Assuming you have your timeline planned, the next step is to include your images in the RealPix file, using the following code:

head

head

imfl

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This article first appeared in May, 1998.