Just a Taste of HTML+TIME
by Tim Kennedy
July 19, 1999

Editors Note: This review covers the free second preview version Vizact 2000. The gold version is expected to ship later this summer. It is expected to retail for $149.

Vizact 2000 is a new tool in Microsoft's suite of Office products. The stated goal is to provide a Web authoring tool that any Microsoft Office user can fiddle with to make their online documents more dynamic. While it is not being pushed as a complete Web multimedia authoring tool, it does incorporate Microsoft's attempt at a Web multimedia language called HTML+TIME. It is the "time" part of HTML+TIME that is the important angle. Like many multimedia authoring tools of the past, Vizact 2000 uses the HTML+TIME approach to display information in relation to a timeline.

Of course, the timeline approach has long been what Web authoring has lacked. In the rapid conversion of a CD-ROM world to a World Wide Web world, the timeline was the first victim. HTML+TIME (as well as more mainstream approaches like SMIL) make the timeline approach possible in Web environment again.

IE5 Only
Currently, Microsoft's implementation of HTML+TIME is only viewable in Internet Explorer 5 on the Windows platform. With IE 5 installed, you can visit the Vizact homepage and sample the limited demos online.

My Test
To putVizact 2000 through its paces, I decided to develop a small slideshow and video presentation. Vizact does provide a series of wizards to guide a beginner through use of the product. But I wanted to go off the path a bit and see just what the tool could do. As you will see from my following comments, Vizact offers a taste of HTML+TIME capability. But it has a way to go before being considered a serious Web multimedia authoring platform.