Netscape 5

As you should know by now Netscape 5 beta is being released by the end of the month. Here's what I've been able to find out about it without violating any non-dislosure agreements. The code name for Netscape 5 is Mercury and the code name for the new multimedia rendering engine is Gemini.

Jeff

  • Revolutionary new components of Mercury include Gemini, the code name for Netscape's next-generation rendering engine for dynamic, multimedia content.

  • Create and deliver ultra-compelling content. Netscape will move far beyond the early limitations of static Web pages in terms of content and the ease and flexibility of delivery.

  • Content with no limit. With Netscape's new rendering and layout engine, code-named Gemini, users and developers will be able to create documents that rival the best paper printouts. Gemini will also facilitate the creation of interactive and dynamic content, providing a richer and more compelling user experience than CD-ROM multimedia titles provide.

  • Publish anywhere, share with anyone. Netscape will continue to make it possible to "create once, distribute anywhere" in the content world using HTML, Java, and JavaScript as the core building blocks. Content built using these standards can be published in a variety of ways: as Web pages, email, and application interfaces, or by netcasting or "pushing" to the desktop - even over low-bandwidth connections.

  • Gemini: blazing-fast extensible rendering engine. Netscape's next-generation document and multimedia rendering and display engine, code-named Gemini, will expand the capabilities of many different Mercury components, including Navigator, Composer, Messenger, Collabra, and Calendar.

  • High-performance, compelling content. The immediate benefit users will see from Gemini is unparalleled levels of performance. Complex content with rich graphics, animation, and streaming multimedia will be rendered and displayed extraordinarily quickly. Gemini will provide the ability to render many different advanced document layout and formatting features, up to the level of dedicated desktop publishing systems.

  • Low- and high-bandwidth animation and multimedia support. Netscape will provide integrated support for best-of-class low-bandwidth animation and multimedia content, as well as capabilities tuned for use on high-bandwidth intranets or high-speed consumer access services.

  • Multiformat support. In addition to HTML, Gemini will support common document formats and an extension API to allow support for new document formats.

  • Extensible object-oriented architecture. Netscape will make it easy to write add-ons for Gemini that allow it to interpret new document formats, image formats, or layout and multimedia capabilities. Gemini's capabilities will be accessible through JavaScript and Java for maximum flexibility and programmability.

  • Stand-alone developer component. Although built into Mercury, Gemini will also be available directly from Netscape as a stand-alone developer component for specialized applications.

  • Netscape also plans to offer on its Web site a "visualization component gallery" from which users and developers can pluck display controls that tap into the framework. Sample applications include a Java-based, two-dimensional HyperTree component, which will likely be available with Mercury from Netscape, and a 3-D Hyperbolic Tree from InXight, a Xerox company based in Palo Alto, Calif.

  • The framework is based on Netscape's implementation of the Meta Content Format (MCF) using the Extensible Markup Language (XML), which Netscape proposed as a standard to the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) in early June.

  • MCF provides a means for describing information about Web content and extracting the content. It is derived from Apple's Hotsauce MCF, the brainchild of former Apple engineer R.V. Guha, whom Netscape hired away this spring, Haeberli said.

  • Netscape's MCF overlaps in some areas with Microsoft's Channel Definition Format, a proposed standard for describing pushed content. But MCF is a broader specification, Hickman said.