Chapter 7: Command Line Utilities

Using RMEvents

RMEvents allows you to merge events and image map text files to an .rm file. Events and image map text files are created using a text editor. See "Creating an Events File" and "Creating an Image Map File" below for more information.

RMEvents also allows the user to extract events and image maps from a .rm file into a text file, so they may be edited using any text editor.

To use the command line events utility:

1. Open the MS-DOS prompt.

2. Change the directory to the main RealProducer directory.

   The default main directory is c:\Program Files\Real\RealProducer.

3. Type rmevents -i input.rm -o output.rm <switches> where input.rm is the name of the input file, output.rm is the name of the output file, and <switches> are the events switches you specify. See the table below for more details on all necessary switches.

Switches

The following table describes each switch that you can use on the command line.

-e c:\Real\event.txt

-m c:\Real\image.txt

-d c:\Real\events\input

Examples

The following example merges an event text file with a .rm file:

rmevents -i input.rm -e events.txt -o output.rm

The following example merges an image map text file with a .rm file:

rmevents -i input.rm -m image.txt -o output.rm

The following example dumps image maps and events from the input file into files named input_imap.txt and input_evt.txt, respectively:

rmevents -i input.rm -d input

Creating an Events File

An events file is a simple text file that describes the different components of the event. Before you begin, make sure you have an updated list of the URLs you want to use. Events files should be created using a text editor and saved as text-only files.

The syntax for each entry in an events file is as follows:

The time for <starttime> and <endtime> is represented as:

[[[days:]hours:]minutes:]seconds[.tenths]

The input file may also contain comment lines beginning with the # symbol. The comment lines are ignored by rmevents.

For example, the following text shows how an event file might look. Note that the time of each line must be in ascending order.

u 00:00:10.0 00:00:59.9 http://www.real.com/

u 00:01:00.0 00:02:00.0 http://www.mysite.com/page2/

This input file tells the RealPlayer to point the user's default Web browser to the RealNetworks home page ten seconds into the presentation. One minute into the presentation, the browser is pointed to a page from www.mysite.com.

Creating an Image Map File

An image map file is a text file with HTML-like tags that create a clickable image map within a RealVideo clip. Image maps can be a multitude of shapes, and they can be changed over a number of different times during the clip. They should be created using a text editor and saved as text-only files.

All tags shown below are required unless stated otherwise. Negative values for numbers are not allowed.

Duration Tag

This tag must be at the beginning of the file. The DURATION tag specifies the amount of time from the start of the first map to the end of the last map in the file. The syntax is as follows:

DURATION=days:hours:minutes:seconds:milliseconds

All time parameters must be present. If you don't need to use a time parameter, fill zeros in that space.

Map Tag

This tag describes the overall properties of the image map. You may have as many MAP tags in a file as you wish. The syntax is as follows:

<MAP START=days:hours:minutes:seconds.milliseconds END=days:hours:minutes:seconds.milliseconds COORDS=x,y,x1,y1>

</MAP>

As with the DURATION tag, all time parameters must be specified. The COORDS tag defines the rectangle of the video clip that the image map will occupy. If you enter an area bigger than the display area, the entire area is inactive. Any area not located within this rectangle will be inactive as well.

Area Tag

This tag describes the region within the map that is active. You can define more than one area within each map; all areas for a map must be between the <MAP> and the </MAP> tags. The syntax is as follows:

<AREA START=days:hours:minutes:seconds:milliseconds END=days:hours:minutes:seconds:milliseconds SHAPE=shape COORDS=x0,y0,x1,y1,x2,y2,...xn,yn action_tag ALT="">

The following table describes each sub-tag:

Example

DURATION=0:0:0:40:0

<MAP START=0:0:0:0:0 END=0:0:0:5:20 COORDS=0,0,100,100>

<AREA SHAPE=CIRCLE COORDS=50,50,10 URL="http://www.real.com" ALT="Home Page">

</MAP>

<MAP START=0:0:0:5:20 END=0:0:0:20:3 COORDS=0,0,100,100>

<AREA SHAPE=RECTANGLE COORDS=0,0,50,50 SEEK=0:0:0:3:98 ALT="Seek to a point in the clip">

</MAP>

<MAP START=0:0:0:20:3 END=0:0:0:40.0 COORDS=0,0,100,100>

<AREA END=0:0:0:30:0 SHAPE=POLYGON COORDS=0,50,50,0,100,50 PLAYER="pnm://video.real.com/welcome.rm" ALT="">

<AREA START=0:0:0:31:0 SHAPE=POLYGON COORDS=0,25,25,0,100,50 SEEK=0:0:0:0:0 ALT="Rewind to beginning">

</MAP>