One of the biggest factors in the growth of the web has been the
integration of multimedia capabilities within HTML documents. Since the
early versions of HTML, it has been possible to include references to images
in a document that would allow the embedding of the image in-line along with
document text content. Recently, HTML has been extended to allow the
embedding of not just static images, but sound, video, and VRML files as well.
All of these capabilities now allow for a very rich web surfing experience.
Ensuring Your Content is Conveyed
as Intended
To be sure, not all browsers for HTML can support multimedia. Nor can
every readers experience all the features that multimedia can provide. This
fact must also always be considered in HTML design. As the quantity and
type of multimedia capability has grown in HTML, it has become ever more
difficult to prevent the persistent slide of content on the web to being
primarily multimedia based. Not to say this is a bad thing, but not
EVERYONE can experience this capability. The reader may have a
physical disability that may prevent the full effect to be experienced or
the user may use a text-based browser. Authors must always remember that
not ALL browsers or readers have the capability to experience
the full intended multimedia experience that they try to deliver.
To this end, there are several methods available to help make multimedia
content degrade well for browsers that can not support it. The IMG element
allows the inclusion of a text string that is only available when an image
can not be loaded (whatever the reason.) The OBJECT element also extends this
a step further by allowing text representations of an Image Map to be
displayed when the Image Map can not be used. These options should
ALWAYS be used to ensure that your content is delivered in
SOME fashion to all readers.
This is the grandpa multimedia element. It was the first element introduced
to allow multimedia capability within documents. It also has the
most extensions of any element (about 20) which allow everything from
the embedding of videos and VRML to a range of border, alignment
and size properties.
This is a rather new method introduced by Spyglass that allows the
browser to handle the transit decisions related to using image maps
(hyperlinks defined by geometric regions of an image.) This process
was previously handled by an external file that contained the
geometric hyperlink definitions. The old method required
an extra download request, and access to a server. The new method
includes the information in the HTML page and is much faster.
These elements are analogous to the BACKGROUND attribute to the
BODY element. They allow the embedding of a
sound that plays while a page is viewed. They are both extensions by
different browser vendors that were created at approximately the same
time. It is unlikely that either of these elements will make it into an HTML
standard now that the OBJECT element can absorb
this functionality.
This is the new element meant to absorb all of the functionality of
the many disparate elements designed to include and process other
multimedia content within an HTML document. This element is meant to absorb and
obsolete the Applet, Area,
BGSound, Embed,
Img, Map, and
Sound elements.