Appendix A: SMIL Reference

This appendix provides an overview of the Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language (SMIL) 2.0 elements and attributes used to create server-side playlists. Server-side playlists can be created in a text editor, such as Microsoft Notepad, or with Windows Media Playlist Editor, which you can install from the companion CD. A finished script file is saved with a .wsx file name extension, and then assigned or copied to a publishing point on a Windows Media server, where it can be accessed by end users. If you use the Playlist Editor, the settings you make in the editor are automatically transformed to a SMIL script when you save them to a file. For more information about creating server-side playlists, see Windows Media Services Help.

Playlist Construction

A playlist file is made up of seven basic Extensible Markup Language (XML) elements:

• smil

• media

• seq

• switch

• excl

• priorityClass

• clientData

An element can either define or control the behavior of one or more other elements. By arranging elements and setting values for their corresponding attributes, you can determine the playback and presentation structure of a playlist.

The organization of playlist elements defines a playlist’s control structure. For example, if you open a playlist in a text editor, you will notice that some playlist elements are enclosed within other playlist elements. Elements that contain other playlist elements are known as parent elements. A parent element controls the behavior of all child elements within it.

Six of the seven basic playlist elements act as parent elements: smil, seq, excl, media, priorityClass, and switch. The seq and excl elements act as time containers, meaning that they control the timing of child elements. The priorityClass and switch elements act as control containers, meaning that they control the interaction of child elements.

In a playlist, the smil element is the document root, meaning that it is the parent of all the other elements in the playlist. In the following example, a seq element is the child of the smil element. The seq element contains media and clientData elements, which are modified by src and title attributes, respectively. The wsx element preceding the smil element is used to identify the version of the server-side SMIL syntax being used.

<?wsx version=’1.0'?> <smil>     <seq>         <media src="/books/2/544/1/html/2/file1.wmv">             <clientData title="My File #1"/>         </media>         <media src="/books/2/544/1/html/2/file2.wmv">             <clientData title="My File #2"/>         </media>         <media src="/books/2/544/1/html/2/file3.wmv">             <clientData title="My File #3"/>         </media>         <media src="/books/2/544/1/html/2/File4.wmv"/>             <clientData title="My File #4"/>         </media>     </seq> </smil>