HTML 5 and Quartz Composer 5

nobbystylus's picture

Ok, so i'm reading seriously in between the lines here (probably in between the in between), but with Steve Jobs so anti Flash and pro HTML 5, and what with Mr Wright heading over to QC labs at apple, and, well just with a bit of pure speculation, i was wondering..

if Quartz Composer could be heading for life as a potential HTML 5 'authoring' tool? Interactive content, animation etc?

Thoughts?

vade's picture
Re: HTML 5 and Quartz Composer 5

No way.

Too much of Quartz Composer is built on proprietary OS technology like Quartz imaging, Core Graphics, Core Image, Core Video and friends. The whole back end would have to be re-written to be agnostic to be presentable/usable in HTML5, which means you loose or have to re-implement 99% of the patches in QC. Whats the point?

Thats not to say that some ideas taken from QC and node based programming / data flow apps may not have their place on the web, or for authoring (see Yahoos RSS pipes thing) BTW, if you mean authoring as in WYSIWYG editors, I don't think "patching" is the right metaphor, code has its place, and at that point just show the damn web page like iWeb or Fireworks or whatever it is).

If you mean slick HTML5 style animations, I think things like scripatlicious and whatever is new and hip is going to gain much momentum with the web monkeys. Look at Flash, it was basically an NLE, with editable keyframes and a timeline, and now its basically a full up programming language, where you dont need a GUI representation at all. The direction is all to code, and easier to use frameworks.

I'd be surprised if anything like a dataflow language ever gained popularity outside of the DSP, A/V, VJ/DJ and new media circles. I love it, don't get me wrong, but its strengths are useful to those who want just enough programming flexibility without all of the complexity. Once you hit a critical mass of patches, noodles, feedback systems and what not, it ends up being simpler and easier to manage is traditional code, or find an app that just does what you want. Maybe I'm wrong, but I'd be amazingly surprised if anything what you propose happens.

I want Apple's newest in house QC guru to focus on quality control and bug fixing, and sorting out all of the weirdness in QC. Then we can move on :)

cybero's picture
Re: HTML 5 and Quartz Composer 5

Quote:

I want Apple's newest in house QC guru to focus on quality control and bug fixing, and sorting out all of the weirdness in QC. Then we can move on :)

Here, here. Well said.

As for HTML 5, Flex and Flash, I would be rather surprised to see Adobe choosing to loose out on the prevalence of Flash media , even though it needs some rationalising and justifying cost wise as such for HTML 5, when HTML 5 can provide an increasingly rich, standards compliant graphical experience.

Whatever, it's going to be an interesting future, content creation & markup wise.

Besides - it would seem rather more likely to me that Adobe would produce their own HTML 5 conformant RIA authoring tools - and probably good ones too, probably with different publishing settings for Flash friendly HTML 5 devices and also for those HTML 5 only devices like the iPad that can't [or won't] take Flash on their HTML 5 friendly device.

Given the App Store consideration, business sense doesn't seem to lean towards Flash running on the iP's any time soon.

gtoledo3's picture
Re: HTML 5 and Quartz Composer 5

It's been kind of disappointing how Apple has let the Web Objects tech sort of flounder... it's funny to think that at one point, with NeXT, one was able to compile to Windows, and to Java (I believe... fuzzy).

Oh yeah.... and the original post sounds like some ultra wishful thinking ;) It would be pretty slick though. The best thing for all of us would be to get rid of the bugs, and be really careful about introducing new features that aren't well vetted.

usefuldesign.au's picture
Re: HTML 5 and Quartz Composer 5

Hopefully Moores law will see QC make it to the iPad one day though. Will make an excellent lower-cost, lower-carbon-producing AV signage device when it does.

Makes me wonder how they ported Keynote, I assumed much of the transitions and builds were coded in QC especially the 3D stuff. The OpenGL ES shaders must be working overtime.

cybero's picture
Re: HTML 5 and Quartz Composer 5

best thing I can think of is download that iPhone SDK and see what it holds.

cybero's picture
Re: HTML 5 and Quartz Composer 5

As far as I know Web Objects is a default install with OS X Server, but probably is in need of an update for Snow Leopard, it seems more of a dev community technology than flagship technology , is I guess what you mean.

gtoledo3's picture
Re: HTML 5 and Quartz Composer 5

It has been deprecated, though not discontinued...

What I mean is that, I believe, that the original concept what that one could compile anything they did in XCode as a Java Web Object (NeXT era to early OS X). There was a Java foundation that at one time pretty well mirrored the Obj-C Frameworks, where the frameworks were written/rewritten in pure Java. So, one could/can deploy to other OS's successfully...anything with a Java virtual machine.

It probably came to a point where remaking/porting every Framework to Java became a sort of pointless endeavor or hard to justify cost.

vade's picture
Re: HTML 5 and Quartz Composer 5

That is a good point about Keynote & GL ES. I bet a lot of under the hood changes had to have been made.

SteveElbows's picture
Re: HTML 5 and Quartz Composer 5

I have speculated in the past that Quartz Composer could have a few interesting uses as a development tool for building multitouch apps. Whether that happens for the ipad with a special cutdown version of QC, or whether Apple plan other multitouch devices that run full OS X I cannot predict, could also be both or neither.

Things are heating up in terms of developing for mobile devices too. Its looking a bit like Microsoft may go for silverlight as the dev platform for Windows Phone 7 (not confirmed), Adobe is doing a mobile version of AIR, and Apple and some others would like Flash to lose its place on the web. Canvas 3D holds potential and I would not be shocked if Apple wanted to make a tool that provided HTML5, CSS3 & Canvas 2D & 3D authoring to compete with Adobes various Flash authoring (inc flash catalyst) apps and Microsofts Expression apps for Silverlight. I dont think QC is the perfect fit for this, though certain elements of it may make some sense, especially if the target is Canvas 3D. In most other aspects the Apple dev app Dashcode is a better fit for developing HTML & js based webapp stuff. I think they also hired people who had done some js library called sproutcore or something, though it didnt seem too advanced last time I looked at it and may be better suited to developers already used to doing stuff the Apple way with other languages.

cybero's picture
Re: HTML 5 and Quartz Composer 5

BTW - off topic slightly - although pertinent in regards of excluding and excluding application hosts otherwise, it does not specifically address the matter of that application having any handle into or upon the quartz composer framework.

Lee suggested to me that you might be interested in the editing of the plist in QC whereby one can add in excludedHosts, although I'd have thought you already knew of this, just thought I'd pass that on.

Regards the question of iPad content formats and its creation, I think the rather more likely result in the short to medium term would be that the iPad will advance the use of Canvas and SVG and that both Apple and Adobe will be looking to roll out application ware that enables the creation, editing and publishing of such device specific content, whatsoever the file formats HTML 5 supports upon the iPad or iPhone.

Flash [&Flex] already employ a well chosen set of publishing variants and I would expect that Device Central vade mecum to remain the case and just be expanded upon to include the iPad and to then trot out an iPad compatible, HTML5 conformant variant of the core interface design.

leegrosbauer's picture
Re: HTML 5 and Quartz Composer 5

heh. I'm hopeful nobody asks me how to actually perform this QC plist editing that cybero has credited me with suggesting as a notification to usefuldesign.au. Cybero also generously brought the capability to my own attention but, in all honesty, I haven't yet figured out how to actually do it. :-)

usefuldesign.au's picture
Re: HTML 5 and Quartz Composer 5

OK cough-up Lee! How does one edit the plist to add in excluded hosts , what does this do and why would I want to do it exactly? It's all new to me…

I didn't really understand the first two paragraphs of your post cybero. I was speculating Keynote (existing version) uses QC internally to do page transitions and builds as opposed to Core Animation, Core Image etc. iPad version is supposed to be compatible with existing Keynote so I guess that means same document format (which is mainly placed image and movie files and plists for the structured bit from memory).

cybero's picture
Re: HTML 5 and Quartz Composer 5

Point of clarification from the source of the confusion - When I said Lee suggested, I meant it was a suggestion to bring this kind of facility to your attention.

I was speaking off exploiting the entry of plist information in the Editor Information window - see attached picture for one example, one can set to clear editor viewer window, exclude hosts, make exclusive hosts and a whole lot more.

How useful that is is directly dependent upon that given applications dovetailing with the quartz composer framework - for instance - to date , I have been unable to incorporate even simple graphic animations into iWork Keynote '09, however I have just begun to explore this plist enabled functionality as I've been needing to ensure that my experiments with virtual macros have got a virtualPatch /name of patch type entry in the composition's plist.

This is a useful adjunct to what Kineme Core does on an installation specific basis.

Not quite the same thing - and I'm still discovering as to what amounts to application support and enabling that for applications.

I'm sure there'll be more than one single way.

If it's still confusing everyone - then I guess I'll just have to make mini video tutorial about the matter.

and just to contradict myself - proving its a matter of the composition a standards patches approach works sweetly enough in Keynote, so that functionality has not been lost and is not enabled by KinemeCore or any plist editing approaches.

Oh and now Keynote does indeed show up in the list for selective Unsafe mode, which I'll examine further, clearly just needed to refresh its association with the inbuilt frameworks.

Keynote still doesn't like honouring the movie loader patch. & a further self contradiction - got the Movie Loader working plain and simple, but not with networked URLs in Keynote, only local directory resources.

PreviewAttachmentSize
asciiartinformationpane.png
asciiartinformationpane.png96.61 KB

cybero's picture
Re: HTML 5 and Quartz Composer 5

Regards the Keynote - it doesn't have a specifically designated set of .qtz bundled with the application so I would hazard a guess that it was a functionality howsoever achieved embedded in the application executable. Not plain text readable. Keynote certainly does a good job with primitive patch based compositions.

Also KinemeCore wise not only does Keynote list but in addition all plugins are available to safe / unsafe not only Kineme's.

Now that the unsafe mode is set correctly for Keynote the Kineme plugins do work in most coms presented.

leegrosbauer's picture
Re: HTML 5 and Quartz Composer 5

usefuldesign.au wrote:
OK cough-up Lee!

Sorry Alastair, I really do not know how to do it. This capability is cybero's discovery and although he did present it to me for consideration, my tech comprehension and skills simply aren't sufficient to allow me to perform it (non-programming QC hobbyist here). You'll need to consult with cybero for clarification. :-)

cybero's picture
Re: HTML 5 and Quartz Composer 5

BTW - my idea was to remove excludedHosts and add in exclusiveHosts. Amongst other things.

cybero's picture
Re: HTML 5 and Quartz Composer 5

QC wouldn't be a perfect fit for this , but it would be nice to see the .qtz format supported in an embedded format.

Given the framework considerations and need to port to the different chipsets, I think the best we just might get are HTML CSS JS Canvas animations - more than sufficient in many respects.

We might also get a way of creating a type of .qtz that can export to the iPhone, iPad, iTouch - would that be at all possible in Quartz Builder, which is great for standalone applications BTW, but surely it will be a matter of open up Xcode and use that Cocoa and Objective-C in the end :-) .

usefuldesign.au's picture
Re: HTML 5 and Quartz Composer 5

Thanks for going into this a little more, Cybero. This is something I think I'l need to play with to get my head around, don't have much bkgd knowledge in these things. Haven't examined the safe/unsafe aspect of latest KinemeCore yet either so this is a nudge in that direction.

forrest's picture
Re: HTML 5 and Quartz Composer 5

This is an old thread, but I have been working on an HTML5 web media framework with a lot of inspiration from data flow UX. I even VJed a party with Firefox a few weekends ago. http://meemoo.org/

With some WebGL modules, I think that some QC-like features should be possible.

See also: https://github.com/idflood/ThreeNodes.js

PreviewAttachmentSize
Screen shot 2012-02-14 at 16.13.36 .png
Screen shot 2012-02-14 at 16.13.36 .png521.3 KB

monobrau's picture
Re: HTML 5 and Quartz Composer 5 / QTZ to webGL

Haven't tried it, but looks interesting:

https://github.com/daeken/Qtzweb

itsthejayj's picture
Re: HTML 5 and Quartz Composer 5 / QTZ to webGL

Re QTZ to webGl. Agh if only Apple would turn on webGL for browsing is IOS we would have a winner here! *webGL has been available in iAds since IOS 4.2!

cybero's picture
Re: HTML 5 and Quartz Composer 5 / QTZ to webGL

Qtzweb does look interesting but it doesn't currently support even stock patches [not even including coding patches in the stock patches].