FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
PRESS CONTACT: Terje Norderhaug
Media Design in*Progress
Voice: +1(619)437-0664
Email: terje@in-progress.com
MEDIA DESIGN IN*PROGRESS SHIPS INTERACTION 2.1
SAN DIEGO, CA, SEPTEMBER 29, 1998: Media Design in*Progress today shipped
Interaction 2.1, the Mac web server companion for dynamic social websites
that adapt to the visitor. The new release facilitates maintaining multiple
websites on one server, supports authoring synchronized multimedia
presentations using SMIL markup, and allows back-end CGI applications to
benefit from Interaction’s XML processing. Interaction 2.1 is available
from:
http://interaction.in-progress.com
MULTIPLE DYNAMIC WEBSITES
Interaction 2.1 complements the virtual hosting support of recent web
servers by maintaining multiple websites. Each site has its own members,
dynamic XML entities and other properties. Interaction adapts its user
interface depending on the selected site. Multiple sites are supported even
for web servers that don’t have built-in virtual hosting or multihoming.
SYNCHRONIZED MULTIMEDIA WITH SMIL
Interaction 2.1 facilitates markup of SMIL documents. SMIL (Synchronized
Multimedia Integration Language) is the new W3C standard for web based
multimedia presentations. Interaction provides wizards to author SMIL
markup, automatically generated from the SMIL Document Type Definition
(DTD). Using SMIL a website can provide for example rich newscasts or
audio-visual educational lessons on the web. To quote a paragraph from the
W3C SMIL press release:
“Synchronized multimedia is becoming increasingly important on the Web. The
SMIL Recommendation will enable much-needed interoperability in this area,”
explained Tim Berners-Lee, W3C Director and Inventor of the World Wide Web.
SMIL enables authors to bring television-like content to the Web, avoiding
the limitations for traditional television and lowering the bandwidth
requirements for transmitting this type of content over the Internet. With
SMIL, producing audio-visual content is easy; it does not require learning
a programming language and can be done using a simple text editor.
BACK END CGIs BENEFIT FROM XML
Interaction was the first application to apply server-side XML 1.0 for
dynamic websites. The 2.1 release allows back-end CGI applications to take
advantage of Interaction’s XML capabilities and visitor tracking.
Webmasters can thus benefit from the efficiency and flexibility of
extensible markup for pages generated by other CGIs.
Interaction generates HTML pages at serving time from XML content, based on
the processing rules of a style sheet and the context of the request. The
result is websites that adapt to each visitor without requiring scripting,
programming or proprietary “command tag” constructs. The integrated
Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) editor simplifies designing and maintaining a
consistent presentation of the website. Interaction can optionally emulate
CSS to keep the sites accessible and appealing for those using older
browsers.
Press packages including a CD-ROM with the application is available upon
request.
PRICING AND INFORMATION
Interaction 2.1 is priced at $795, and ships on CD-ROM with printed
documentation, telephone- and priority email support, and many
complementary components including web based forums, chat rooms, and
shopping carts. Personal licenses are priced at $245, and include the
on-line distribution with up-and-running support. The PRO license for
Interaction allows an unlimited number of websites. Personal licenses are
limited to three sites. Upgrades to Interaction 2.1 are free for registered
users of Interaction. Customer contact: +1(619)437-0664;
sales@in-progress.com.
ABOUT MEDIA DESIGN IN*PROGRESS
Media Design in*Progress (http://www.in-progress.com) is a leading
developer of Macintosh software based on W3C web standards for professional
webmasters, web designers and web publishers. In addition to Interaction,
the company has released XPublish, the first commercial XML website
publishing system, and Cascade, the first comprehensive Cascading Style
Sheets editor. The company is privately owned. Media Design in*Progress has
its headquarters in San Diego, California.