A few more comments on HTML, XHTML, HTML 5

In HTML WTF, Jeffrey Zeldman says “XHTML is dead—kind of.” The dozens of comments following his pronouncement indicates there is still plenty of confusion regarding XHTML and the budding HTML 5 standard. In Stoneship, Denis Defreyne’s comments mocked the comments from Zeldman’s readers. Daring Fireball’s John Gruber says there are a lot of misunderstandings out there regarding HTML 5.

Can someone bring clarity to the issue?

I’m relatively new to serious web page coding, so I can’t speak from either experience or capability, but if ever there was an issue that needed clarity it’s HTML 5.

Having recently been given the assignment to re-build Mac360 I decided to look closer at browser page rendering capability and the various W3C standards, including CSS. HTML 5 has been added to my list.

Regarding Jeffrey Zeldman’s pronouncement, I sympathize completely with his perspective, and that of many of the commenters. It’s a mess. I don’t see how HTML 5, especially now that there is no agreement on audio and video codecs, improves the mess. Instead, it adds to the mess.

As someone now entrusted with code development on a few sites, I have a basic objective. Sites with clean, uncluttered, manageable code, standards compliant, that also look good in major browsers of recent heritage.

Easier said, than done, huh?

This whole area of web page rendering and standards is a serious mess; mostly born of Microsoft’s continued incompetence and flaunting of any standards other than their own; the de facto standard, itself highly fragmented. It’s a sad state of affairs, improved only somewhat in the recent competition between Apple, Mozilla, and Opera to produce browsers that render W3C standardized code pretty much the same way.

That said, I decided that the code I should use going forward is XHTML 1.0 Transitional, though, admittedly, the choice has absolutely zero to do with the future of XML, and nothing to do with anything transitional. I just want a code base that will be around for a few years and present web pages that look decent in most browsers. The various HTML standards have received little attention other than neglect in recent years. It’s still impossible to use HTML and embed audio and video into a page, have it display properly in most major browsers, and be standards compliant.

For a few months I devoted a lot of time to building web pages with valid code and an increasing amount of CSS (it’s a horribly convoluted learning process, fraught with hacks), only to see the results of web pages distorted, cracked, broken, or mutated by Microsoft’s Internet Explorer’s ridiculously incompetent page rendering; especially IE 6.x, slightly less so in IE 7.x, surprisingly too often in IE 8, considering how long they’ve had to work on it.

Seriously, what a mess.

XHTML 1.0 Transitional seemed to me to be the one W3C standard that rendered web pages decently in most major browsers with the least amount of hacking, including Microsoft’s Internet Explorer. With coding emphasis on CSS these days, it also seemed to be a good choice to move eventually from XHTML 1.0 to HTML 5, which may have a future, but still misses at least one major element needed for future success (besides ratification)—audio and video media components rendered the same in Microsoft, Apple, Mozilla, Opera browsers.

I’ve given up on trying to use the object or embed tags for audio and video in a validly coded web page, opting for Javascript instead. It’s cumbersome. It’s an overweight add-on. But it works. Mostly.

Admittedly, I’m intrigued by HTML 5 because it should bridge the gaps between HTML and XHTML, adds sorely needed new functions and features, but I fear Zeldman’s assessment is correct. WTF? Without all the major browser makers on board, and without an intent to render pages in their browsers the same way (most of the time), it’s just another layer which complicates the matter rather than solving the problems that exist now.

John Gruber is right. There are a lot of misunderstandings out there regarding HTML 5. Therefore, clarity as to the value and future of HTML 5 would be beneficial. Someone with a clear, strong, knowledgeable voice has an opportunity to do this. Denis Defreyne’s mocking comments to Zeldman and commenters isn’t it.

Soundboard: The digital cart machine

My career in radio started back when music came on records. That was before video tape replaced film in TV stations; about the time that cart machines became a radio station’s best new technology. We live in the digital age which has done to video tape and cart machines what they did to film and live commercials. Enter Ambrosia’s Soundboard. A blast from the past. A digital cart machine without the cart or machine, yet the perfect audio clip tool for live broadcasts, podcasts, or even music.

That Was Then

Cart machines made the instant playback of audio—commercials, programs, announcements, even music—as simple as pressing a button.

The cartridge was similar to a cassette tape and could be reused. Plunk the cart into the playback machine, press a button, and out came whatever sound had been recorded.

The cart revolutionized radio production for a couple of decades.

The digital age brought compact discs to audio production, potentiometers were replaced by sliders and faders, carts almost disappeared as computer screens and keyboards became the norm in broadcast stations.

Point & Click

Our Macs are audio and video powerhouses capable of recording and mixing award winning music, television shows, even movies.

The cart machine may have disappeared, but it lives in spirit with Ambrosia’s Soundboard, a trigger happy, point and click reincarnation of the carts of yesteryear.

I’ve been a Final Cut user since version 1.1.2. I love SoundTrack. I’ve even ventured into Logic (my sons play guitar and drums, respectively).

In recent years I’ve toyed with producing Podcasts (easy in Garageband) but prefer a live recording session, complete with sound effects, and other audio and video enhancements.

Digital point and click production isn’t so easy in a live recording session. There’s too much going on.

Soundboard

What the Mac needed was a simple, elegant audio utility that allowed a producer to create audio clips and play them back with a simple click.

Like the cart machines from broadcast radio days, Soundboard provides a quick way to enhance your podcasts or broadcasts with sound clips, effects, or musical accompaniment.

That’s what Soundboard does. It’s a digital cart machine on your Mac’s screen.

Soundboard was designed for live performances - the interface is intuitive at a glance, and in no time hitting your favorite sound effects will be automatic.

Instead of carts, Soundboard uses typical Mac drag and drop of audio files into cells. Click on the cell and the sound plays. Cells can be rearranged. Click and play, or click and hold, let it play, then unclick and the sound stops.

Seeing Is Believing

Onscreen, Soundboard presents you with two windows. One is an always floating window with controls for Master Output, left and right channel sliders, effects menu, and the current audio IO (built in output, mixer, whatever).

The other window features cells where you drag and drop up to 32 audio clips per Soundboard. Drag an audio clip to a cell. Soundboard converts the file. Each audio clip can be controlled in the cell.

Change the clip name, drag a cell to rearrange, click the down arrow for more options, mouse over to see an arrow to start the clip with a click, click the same place to stop the clip.

Multiple Soundboards can be added via a tabbed interface to extend Soundboard beyond 32 clips. I noticed some lag between click and audio, probably a result of how the audio clip was stored. In a future release I’d like to see the empty space on a clip automatically overridden so sound starts instantly.

The Edit control pops out an audio editor so you can trim audio selections.

Your Mac’s keyboard can also be used for playback and transport controls. The editor is limited basic fade in and out per cell clip, though duration can be changed, as can waveform colors, scrub duration, and more. Effects can be added via the floating controls.

Wait. There’s More

Soundboard can share boards with other users. Audio clips are stored in Apple lossless format for higher quality and instant start up.

Think of Soundboard as a point and click audio library of whatever sounds—voice, music, instrument, sound effects—your production needs. It’s multi-track without the tracks.

Soundboard can even be controlled by a MIDI device, which means that USB keyboard you bought can be a sound machine. Sound can be faded, cropped, filtered live, and non-destructive to your original audio file.

Each audio cell can be renamed, reorganized, and customized as needed. It can even stop and start as many clips as you can trigger (try that in the cart machines of old).

Soundboard is a fun utility with many audio and video production uses; especially live production. If your heart comes from radio of decades past, or you just want a flavorful tool that does more, Soundboard is highly recommended.