Multimedia authoring paradigms

A large number of multimedia authoring systems already exist, as either academic prototypes or as readily available commercial systems. Although each offers its own particular way of assembling a multimedia presentation, a number of distinct authoring paradigms can be identified: structuring, timeline, flowchart and script. We describe these and discuss their relative advantages and disadvantages. To give a more tangible feel for authoring multimedia, we also give an overview of our own multimedia authoring environment, CMIFed.