A plug-in based RIA for multimedia communication

Multimedia communication like voice and video calls over IP or Video on Demand grows in popularity today [1], [2]. However, the development of such applications is a complex and error-prone process, as only basic framework support is available. In this paper we introduce RAPIX, a plug-in based Rich Internet Application (RIA) that eases this development. Furthermore, our web-based approach supports a wide range of devices enabling even mobile phones for multimedia communication. We prove our concept with a prototype implementation based on the Rich AJAX Platform [3] enriched with Adobe Flash to support multimedia playback and access audio and video capture from the web browser. This enables RAPIX to cope with multiple, hot pluggable applications and takes the complexity of the web browser integration off the application programmer. Common functionality like window management, a notification system, and a generic resource list are integrated as well.