TOONCAT.COM
ToonCat.com is the general demonstration site for many of the multi-media features offered by Snippets(tm), the new language for web design, including animation, enhanced capabilities for pixel-based graphics (such as disolves, trajectories and smooth-zooming), plus web audio (via Snippets' internal MP3 player) and video with transparency.

SEQUENCED CONTENT
Sequenced presentations are prominent on this site. Sequenced content is controlled in Snippets by event-points generated by a variety of timers, MP3 playback, movies, image disolves, image motion, or by various button clicks and rollovers. Designers may specify preloading of any content to assure precise synchronization between multi-media.

TEXT AND LINE-ART
Text fonts, lines, rectangles, arcs and ellipses are all anti-aliased and auto-scale with images to assure precise position relative to each other. ToonCat content is auto-sized to a user's screen, but may be enlarged or shrunk by user interaction, keeping a constant layout. Text blocks may be centered, left-justified, right-justified or fully justified, with full over-write (over-strike) for text shadow and other effects.

STILL IMAGES AND VIDEOS
Image media includes layered JPG and GIF images, variable image magnification, semi-transparency, transparent background, auto-shadowing and auto-cropping, edge blending, automated disolves, X-Y image motion, and wallpaper. Movies are implemented as frame-strips of JPG or GIF images, easily synchronized with MP3 sound, and can control additional media items.

MP3 PLAYBACK - OUTBOARD vs INTERNAL
Optionally, this mechanism may also be used for outboard playback of MP3 music files, if the web designer prefers certain extended features available in industry standard players (i.e. graphic equalizers, progress/seek bars, etc). This is quite natural for larger streamed files, but outboard streaming cannot provide the event-points (clocked at 1000 or 200 millisecond intervals) available within Snippets, nor can it provide precise synch'ing with other media, as Snippets provides by virtue of its optional preloading of MP3 sound-clips.

AUTHORING TOOLS
ToonCat designers need no special authoring tools, and no special browser plugin is needed beyond the Java plugin shipped with almost all PC's and available for free at Java.com. Although ToonCat syntax resembles a very simplified Java syntax, designers need no Java experience nor Java development software. All programming for this website was composed with conventional text editors. All images and videos were mastered in PhotoShop Elements 2.0 (the low-priced consumer version). All sound files were composed in GoldWave, a widely-used consumer sound editor.



OTHER SNIPPETS SITES
Two additional websites may be visited for more comprehensive views of certain Snippets capabilities...

SKIRTCHECK.COM - - - SkirtCheck.com is a proof-of-concept demonstration of a multi-vendor retailing and publishing application for the fashion industry. Its state-of-the-art mannequin owes its eye-catching impact to the extensive use of Snippets advanced imaging for the web, particularly overlayable semi-transparency with configurable garments, accessories, eyes, hair, anatomy, make-up, tattoos and piercing ornaments.

SkirtCheck pioneers an even greater revolution in web technology by fully exploiting Snippets' powerful multi-application evironment, as demonstrated by its three catalog bays which the user fills and empties with vendor catalogs of her choosing. Each catalog comprises its own multi-threaded independent application suite, being...
1. Primarily written in Snippets, along with
2. Special processing handled in browser-side Java via a bidirectional Java API, along with
3. Out-links to legacy XML server-side features such as ShoppingCart, CustomerProfile, etc.

SkirtCheck defines the future for a vital industry facing difficult trasnsitions out of its current mode of glossy print on dead trees. It remains under password protection until the the mannequin gets some clothes (mid 2010), lest the poor girl be mistaken as a new kind of pornography toy.


GOSNIPPETS.COM - - - goSnippets.com is slated to appear as a work-in-progress in early 2010. Its two objectives are:
1. To provide a voice-driven tutorial for designers wishing to build Snippets-powered web sites.
2. To set a new standard for multi-media web tutorials and educational applications, by using Snippets to accomplish item #1.

GoSnippets.com is part of a limited outreach program for finding strategic partners focused on a narrow set of initial offerings (commercial and non-commercial) to be implemented in Snippets.

The current project designates that this turorial will be hosted/narrated by Sherman Wissinger, the creator of the Snippets language.