Method and apparatus for generating multi-media presentations

摘要

The multi-media presentation generation system combines media objects of multiple diverse types into an integrated multi-media presentation. The resultant multi-media presentation can be defined in an output-independent representation, which the multi-media presentation generation system converts into a representation that is optimized for the destination storage and/or presentation medium selected by the author. The multi-media presentation generation system uses a page based document layout paradigm to regulate the spatial relationships among the plurality of objects contained within the multi-media presentation. The page based document layout system partitions document pages, as defined by the author, into a plurality of objects, each of which is independently editable by the author. A multi-media authoring tool extends the capabilities of the page based document layout system to enable an author to merge both static and dynamic objects in a page layout environment to create the multi-media presentation. The resultant multi-media presentation comprises a static background on which is overlaid a plurality of independently running dynamic objects, which objects may be responsive to the user's input.