Mozilla to Release Popcorn Maker - Open Source HTML 5 Interactive Video Authoring System. Free.

written by: Richard Kastelein

Details

Published on Tuesday, 17 July 2012 17:14

In November 2012 Mozilla plans to release Popcorn Maker - a creative tool that makes authoring interactive video as easy as point and click - which has evolved from Popcorn.js. Popcorn.js is an event system for HTML5 media developers - Think jQuery for video. You can leave the heavy lifting to Popcorn, and concentrate on what you do best: writing awesome code.

Popcorn Maker brings the power of popcorn.js and its plugin system to a graphical user interface, with familiar timeline controls. Completely free and open source, Popcorn Maker offers a collection of useful templates, but since it’s built from standard HTML, you can customize it to your heart’s content.

Popcorn Maker 1.0 will empower you to make cool web-based media, whether you’re a beginner or pro. With over 20 plugins—ranging from Twitter to Google Maps to video processing—you’ll be able to stitch up a stylish video that’s woven into the web. And, of course, it’s 100% free and open source.

You’ll be able to publish and share your creations on your blog, Twitter, or Tumblr (or just grab the code).

Help  test the app

Popcorn is in active development. The current version is a preview version they have released for the Summer Code Party. Please let them know if you find any bugs (you will!).

Contribute to Popcorn

See a guide on how to contribute to Popcorn Maker.

To create Popcorn Maker, they developed Butter - a software development kit for HTML5-based timeline media apps. If youʼd like to build upon Popcorn Maker, you can get started now by forking it on Github.

Why use Popcorn?

Popcorn.js utilizes the native HTMLMediaElement properties, methods and events, normalizes them into an easy to learn API, and provides a plugin system for community contributed interactions.

Popcorn has dozens of plugins for common services and APIs, ranging from Twitter, to Maps, to media events, and more. But if it doesn’t do what you need right now, you can write your own plugins quickly and easily.

Tested + Community Supported

With over 1400 unit tests, popcorn.js is put through the paces at every release. A result of many iterations, popcorn.js achieved its 1.0 milestone thanks to the efforts of a dedicated community of world class developers and media makers. And with Mozilla behind it, you can feel confident that this library will be supported well into the future. We’re always open to suggestions of how to make the project better suit your needs.

An expanding ecosystem

Popcorn is the core behind a growing number of sister projects and libraries. For example

1. Seriously.js, a webGL effects library for video
2. sequencer.js, a method for chaining multiple media objects to a single sequence
3. Instapoppin, a user friendly approach to designing Popcorn user experience.
4. butter.js, an API supporting our Popcorn Maker app and any other apps that use popcorn
5. Popcorn Kernel, a simple web server for client-server popcorn experiences