SVG 1.1 Becomes W3C Proposed Recomendation

openbear writes "From the w3c web site... W3C is pleased to announce the advancement of Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) 1.1 and Mobile SVG to Proposed Recommendations. Comments are welcome through 20 December. SVG delivers vector graphics, text, and images to the Web in XML. SVG 1.1 separates the SVG language into reusable building blocks. Mobile SVG re-combines them into two profiles optimized for cellphones and pocket computers."

Comments

A what now?

[ejdmoo]

A proposed recommendation for possibility of consideration of partial inclusion...

Re:A what now?

[packeteer]

So there is a 1% chance that this will end up in a real change/project. Its basically just a bunch of theoretical stuff that if about a dozen decisions go the right way will mean something 5 years from now.

See also XForms

[leighklotz]

See also W3C XForms, which has just become a Candidate Recommendation (one step before PR). XForms updates HTML forms to be XML-based, and plays well with other standards, adding forms to SVG and other XML applications. There are already about a dozen XForms implementations, ranging from those for hand-held devices to standalone clients and popular browser plug-ins. (And a Bugzilla entry for Mozilla that is entertaining reading, though a link from Slashdot won't work anyway.)

Disclaimer: I am one of the editors of the XForms spec.

Re:See also XForms

[Anonymous Coward]

There are already about a dozen XForms implementations, ranging from those for hand-held devices to standalone clients and popular browser plug-ins

How many of these implementations support the UPLOAD form control?

Why do you expect browser authors to implement XForms when they don't even implement the ACCEPT attribute of HTML's INPUT TYPE=FILE element?

Disclaimer: I worked on XForms for most of 1999.

Quick Info

[Anonymous Coward]

I heard that Redhat is planning to embedd librSVG (depends on some GNOME libraries) and GTK+ natively into XFree. Soon we have one standard Desktop on Linux, no halfassed things like XFree with bad Athena widgets and crappy configuration. We will get a complete reworked XFree with GTK+/GNOME support and new standards of libraries. You can read more about the plans on either the Redhat Mailinglists or the XFree development lists. A couple of GNOME developers are working on it already.

Re:Quick Info

[Anonymous Coward]

I heard that Redhat is planning to embedd librSVG...natively into XFree

• 1. It's not RedHat, it's a former SuSE employee;
  
• 2. it's a server extension;
  
• 3. it's not SVG, although it can be used for rendering SVG. Or PDF. Or PostScript. Or whatever.
  

Re:Quick Info

[EzInKy]

...maybe next we'll get a standardized installation system...

Gee, I thought... ./configure --options
make
make install ...worked on just about every system.

Re:Quick Info

[KeyserDK]

This guy is clueless beyond imagination.. Anyway..

The Xfree86 stuff he is getting riled up about is probably this
While the gnome/gtk stuff is here and here
How he mixed it together is - impressive.

Re:Quick Info

[EzInKy]

Wow, I was half joking and you seem to be spoiling for a fight, lol.

Linux is what you want it to be...you want a point and click OS with easy installs, no problem use KDE and front end to apt or rpm.

But, since you are an A+ computer student, wouldn't you agree that it is important to understand what is going on underneath that pretty GUI to make all that magic happen?

Let's suppose that you've graduated and have your degree. You land a lucrative job and are happily going about your work until all of sudden one day something goes wrong and your machine won't launch the desktop. What are you going to do?

Now don't you think you'd look pretty silly having all that sheepskin hanging on your wall proclaiming you a computer expert, yet you can't even edit a simple command line script to fix your own computer?

Re:Quick Info

[justsomebody]

Interesting comment, if it would be posted as a "freshmans hopes" or discussing userland software.

I agree, standard installer is good.

but installing software/hardware and configuring system settings is a fucking rootcanal
Hardware as I see is much simple to install in linux than in Windows. Off course I use only branded and mostly expensive hardware that's confirmed to be working with Linux, so no Softmodems or notebooks with 830 chipset.
Software, well if it is in RPM then installing it in Mandrake or RH8 then it's simpler, otherwise I agree. ./configure
make
make install
should not be used for typical installation, at least not for users, especially not for userland software, that's something I agree completely.

LET GO OF THE GOD DAMN PAST!!! THE COMMAND LINE DIED WHEN WINDOWS 3.1 WAS RELEASED!!! DEAL WITH IT!
A fairly newb comment. Try to use bash scripting with all his power sometimes and you'll notice one thing Windows never had command line, at least not decent one, DOS Command line was just a simple mockup, so command line has not died with GUI arrival, just the stupid mockups

So if you're hoping to be stop being newb and become pro. Get with the program. Admin will (or better, should) never be restricted to GUI only. I admit that it's nice to click "do my server" and all is running. But better question is: Is it really running as you'd like it to run? Let's say apache, try to make a GUI that would enable admin to use it with all his power and be simple to use. Impossible, Webmin is the closest thing to that option.

So, take my words to consideration. GUI is good but not really powerfull (if there's no option to click something, well you can't set that something and looking as Server parts are evolving there's always some options that can't be clicked). CLI is better but harder to learn and harder to use. If you can do something in GUI, do it, then use CLI to check and fine tune what you did with GUI.

Next thing, read your last two sentences and try todecide what are you: anewb or a trying to be pro. I just couldn't figure it out

Re:Quick Info

[Arandir]

I really wish the nix community would quit trying to be leet and make an OS for the rest of us already.

Get a clue. We're not making an OS for you, we're making one for us! Get it? If you don't like it you can either become one of us, or make your own. Geez...

(oh, and in case anyone thinks im a newb, im currently in school for computers, have an A+, will soon have Net+ and w2k MCP, and i've been running linux for 6 months.)

Sounds like a newb to me... If you've got the skills, use them to improve freenix. Otherwise stop bitching about what we've sweated decades to make, and which we give to you for free.

Re:Quick Info

[be-fan]

You know what they say, a little bit of knowledge can be a dangerous thing!

Re:Quick Info

[KewlPC]

You don't need the -v option. It stands for "verbose", which is why tar prints all that stuff on the screen.If you want to know what's in the archive, use -ztf (the key here is the -t option, which makes tar tell you what's in the file).

If you could actually read a man page, you'd know what the other options do. To make your life easy:

• -z tells tar that the file you are trying to untar is compressed
  
• -x tells tar that you are trying to untar the file, rather than add more files to it
  
• -f tells tar that the archive should come from a file, rather than tape.

So tar -zxf file.tar.gz means that tar should first run gunzip on file.tar.gz, then extract the files from file.tar instead of the tape drive.

As for changing tar: it is still used by many people for backing up to tape. Is it really that hard to remember the -zxf ? Also, I don't think that gzip should be integrated with tar because not all tar archives are compressed with gzip. Ever see a .tar.Z file? They seem to be very common on Irix, and aren't compressed with gzip AFAIK.

As for the use of a command line being unprofessional: no. The Unix command line is almost infinitely more powerful than the DOS command line. I like being able to do anything from the command line. I can't tell you how many times being able to remotely log into a machine to fix something and fix it from the command line (as opposed to being required to use a GUI for configuration) has saved my ass. You don't need to use the command line on a regular basis, though. Aside from when I'm programming or logged into one of my machines remotely, I don't use the command line as often as I thought I'd have to when I first switched all my machines at home to various *nixes. Unfortunately, many people migrate from Windows thinking Linux will be "like Windows, only better" or some miracle cure for all their computing woes. I've said it before, and I'll say it again, having bazillions of certifications doesn't make you computer knowledgeable, just ask anybody with an MCSE ;-) I hate to tell you this, but your A+ certification means zip to anyone outside of the PC repair world, except for those looking to get their MCSE afterwards.

The thing I am constantly seeing when people switch to Linux or some other *nix who've been using DOS or Windows for a long time (indeed, it was a problem I suffered from when I was learning FreeBSD, the first *nix I was ever exposed to) is that their DOS and Windows knowledge actually hinders them to a certain degree. You're just going to have to deal with the fact that a lot of your DOS and Windows knowledge just doesn't apply in the *nix world, so "unlearn" it lest it hinder you. Unix "grew up" separately from Microsoft OSes, and the "Unix Way" of doing things, while sometimes very different from the "Windows Way", can actually make sense and be helpful if you take the time and effort to learn WHY it's done that way.

I would be interested in knowing why you switched to Linux, why you think it is targetted at the general public (hint: it isn't, it's targetted at people who actually know how to use their computers and aren't afraid to learn new things), and what distribution you're using.

Re:Quick Info

[justsomebody]

You might try few things. Bash scripting guide (just type "bash" in search box on freshmeat.net)
and use "man" more oftenly. There's really no specific reason to memorise all params. Use man when you need it at first. Next thing is you'll be typing that from your head.

I guess my only option is to suck it up and start memorizing, but I don't like it.
We all did that.

I don't think this is a very professional way to make an operating system targeted at the general public.
Wrong, this is a really professional way to make a server operating system. Main reason: admin should know exactly what is he setting up.
But still go to: www.webmin.com and download tar.gz (much easyer to install than others), this should give your clicking need a boost.
But for a desktop I agree it's not right.

CLI should enhance productivity by making things faster, and in some limited cases, add funcitonality. I shouldn't need to use bash on a regular basis.
Like everybody when starting, but it will come time when you'll find out that setting up complex server can be a matter of minutes instead of hours or days. Simple bash script, then Copy files and that's it.
You don't need to use it on regular basis, but in time you will, if you'll just give it a go.

SVG

[Anonymous Coward]

SVG is Scalable Vector Graphics. SVG is made in XML. It is easy to generate SVG. It is easy to export SVG. You can use SVG over the web like flash. You can use SVG to provide nice pretty scalable interfaces to web apps. SVG is more constrained and controlled than HTML. There is less likelyhood of incompatible features.

http://www.w3.org/Graphics/SVG/Overview.htm8

Re:SVG

[0x0d0a]

It would be even nicer if there were Linux graphic editors that could export SVG...

Re:SVG

[Richard W.M. Jones]

There is.

Rich.

http://www.annexia.org/

Re:SVG

[ianezz]

handles also SVG.

Linux implementations

[raju]

The first place I would expect SVG to appear in is the browser. In Mozilla the beta SVG provided by Adobe does not work. Mozilla's own implementation[mozilla.org] is stuck due to licensing issues (LGPL vs MPL). When can we expect a decent one on our beloved platform? Windows users at least a decent one from Adobe.

So is this going to replace Flash?

[bogie]

Flash is the dominant method used for interactive graphics on the web today. Websites, adverts, those little games, all have standardized on Flash. In fact although I wouldn't mind it, I can't picture the internet without Flash anymore.

So my question as a non-developer is can SVG do everything Flash can? I didn't see anything about audio capabilities. Also does anyone think even if it can, are the tools there to make using SVG as good as the tools for making Flash graphics. Lastly is SVG a good working spec that won't be co-opted and ruined by some big company.

Re:So is this going to replace Flash?

[ergo98]

SVG isn't going to replace Flash anymore than Flash is going to replace binary games (i.e. We're not going to play Doom 3 as a Flash game): Each has its place. Having said that, in some situations SVG will supplant Flash were it's a better choice: For instance for charts and graphs the vector graphics capabilities of SVG are absolutely first-rate, and it's unnecessary to resort to a proprietary tool such as Flash when dynamically generated XML will work stunningly. The SVG standard is extremely comprehensive even in its 1.0 form, so I don't see very many ways that it can be coopted by anyone.

Re:So is this going to replace Flash?

[Anonymous Coward]

The big difference between SVG and Flash is that SVG is an open specification, not one which is the property of a big company, Macromedia. Although there's never a guarantee that a big company will ruin its specification (HTML by Microsoft for example), it is not likely. SVG itself doesn't have audio capabilities, but SMIL has. In SVG you can incorporate SMIL to use audio. SVG has also some problems. It's XML, so it's text. This means that it can be quite a lot of data you have to send over the net. Or you can compress it (only zipping method which is supported by the 1.0 recommendation is gzip, this can have change), but then it should be decompressed. After this has been done, it should be parsed by the SVG viewer (like adobe's). Although there's still more support for SVG, there aren't much viewers available for SVG in browsers. Even Adobe's viewer hasn't been updated in a year! But on the longer term I'm sure SVG will be much larger than Flash. Macromedia was keen enough to jump in the hole when there was need for vector graphics. SVG came too late to make it as successfull as Flash instantly. I think the fact that Macromedia owns Flash, while SVG is an open, public standard, will make the difference.

Re:So is this going to replace Flash?

[foniksonik]

Again, SWF is an 'Open Standard' hence the php implementations, perl libs, etc. Macromedia only sells the premiere 'Authoring Tool' aka Flash. OSS could implement such a thing and could improve upon it by incorporating more robust scripting support.

Well they could if they wanted to but most coders think SWF is demon-spawn.

Re:So is this going to replace Flash?

[bsartist]

Again, SWF is an 'Open Standard'

Documented, yes. Open, no. The SWF format is defined and owned by Macromedia.

Re:So is this going to replace Flash?

[IamTheRealMike]

SVG is getting wide adoption in mapping technologies. I used it to implement a selectable, zoomable map at work a few weeks ago. The XML base of it made it a lot easier than working with Flash would have been.

Re:So is this going to replace Flash?

[uhoreg]

SVG doesn't have audio capabilities because audio isn't, well, vector graphics. You can add audio, though, by using SMIL, another W3C standard. Or you can once someone supports SMIL. (RealPlayer supports SMIL, but AFAIK not SVG.) I suppose you could also probably use some JavaScript stuff to get audio.

Re:So is this going to replace Flash?

[dublin]

SVG has also some problems. It's XML, so it's text. This means that it can be quite a lot of data you have to send over the net.

Don't assume that text is necessarily a negative here - I'm working on a project right now where this is a key attribute arguing for SVG: Because it's text-based, SVG is a usable option for very simple, stupid embedded web devices. This allows temperature graphs or controls to be easily created by tiny 8-bit embedded microcontrollers, something that's not really computationally practical with Flash's computationally bloated binary format.

Not everything connected to the Internet is a PC. In fact we're rapidly approaching the point where most of the interesting things on the net won't be PCs. SVG can be very good for those, and it's status as a true web standard makes it a far better choice than Flash as a long-term investment.

Re:So is this going to replace Flash?

[smallpaul]

SVG isn't going to replace Flash anymore than Flash is going to replace binary games (i.e. We're not going to play Doom 3 as a Flash game): Each has its place.

What's Flash's natural place? Why couldn't SVG evolve to replace it?

Re:So is this going to replace Flash?

[smallpaul]

SVG is a vector graphics standards with dynamic DOM style elements intended to work in concert with other W3C web standards. It isn't intended to be a super, all-encompassing multimedia solution, as Flash strives for.

SVG works in concert with a language called "Simple Multimedia Integration Languge" which does allow the integration of various media types into an "all-encompassing multimedia solution." When you combine the stack of W3C standards and extrapolate it does look to me like the set is on target to replace Flash.

Re:So is this going to replace Flash?

[smallpaul]

By the same token SVG works in concert with HTML, but that doesn't mean that I'm going to say that SVG therefore is looking to replace Adobe Acrobat (though the complete solution may very well).

You are incorrect. There is a working group for SVG-in-print that is looking at SVG fulfilling tasks that overlap heavily with PDF.

SVG is a vector graphic addition to the standards compilation, basically, and while using it in concert with other standards allows for a Flash "like" solution, SVG fills a vector graphic gap in the web technology grab bag.

Fine. The point is that the emerging stack could add up to a competitor to Flash so that Flash would be replaced as various hypertext formats were replaced by HTML and its associated standards.

Re:So is this going to replace Flash?

[smallpaul]

I'll finish this discussion with a URL. It looks alot like the kind of thing most people do in flash.

http://www.melmcgee.com/cgi-bin/texis/index?conten tid=3dd3380e47

svg-capable apps?

[CoughDropAddict]

Any unix apps around that will let you do interesting things with svgs? Like, VIEW them even? Why no mozilla support, even though a freely available implementation has been available since May 2001?

SVG looks uber-cool, but there doesn't seem to be much supporting software.

Re:svg-capable apps?

[sjbrown]

For simple viewing, there's librsvg, but for really fun stuff, there's Sodipodi

(among others, I'm sure)

Re:svg-capable apps?

[wombatmobile]

SVGmaker generates SVG from standard Windows apps using File/print, like you do with Acrobat to make PDF.

But SVG is more compact. For example, this PowerPoint presentation is 140kb as compressed SVG, compared to the original PPT which was 950kb.

Re:Awesome

[bluFox]

Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) is XML specification for creating Vector graphics (It can be embeded in html pages)

SVG can be used like flash , and you can use javascript to manipulate the shapes on page.

See batikfor an apache implementation of it and some examples (quite nice ones) , and adobe provides a nice viewer for the svg too..

The good point bt vector graphics is that it is scalable , and sizing of images do not affect the clarity/sharpness of the images

---

Some samples I found here

[bogie]

http://www.adobe.com/svg/demos/samples.html

Let's not get ahead of ourselves here...

[DraconPern]

It's good that a new recommendation is coming out, but people are still trying to get SVG 1.0 right.

For example, try http://www.croczilla.com/svg with your stock IE, mozilla or netscape 6. It doesn't work.

Adobe has an example to show their attempt at http://www.adobe.com/svg/demos/css_layout which only works in IE. But it takes up more CPU power to fade a new squares than flash does.

I am not sure if the world is ready for 1.0 much less 1.1.

Re:Let's not get ahead of ourselves here...

[foniksonik]

I agree SVG needs to be embedded in the VRAM chipset the way that OpenGL has been. It is every bit as process intensive via multiple matrix transformations albeit in a 2D space. So who want to start writing the OSS SVG GPU drivers?

Barring that SVG needs more than a browser 'plugin'.

Re:Let's not get ahead of ourselves here...

[be-fan]

Amaya, the w3c browser is actually trying to do just that.

SVG vs. Flash

[Cheese Cracker]

Here's a great page that compares SVG vs. Flash.

Here's two good reasons why you want to implement SVG instead of Flash:

SVG is a standard, Flash is proprietary.
SVG can be indexed and searched, Flash can't.

Re:SVG vs. Flash

[tshak]

Here's one good reason why you'd want to implement Flash instead of SVG: SVG is Slooow.

Don't get me wrong, I'm very excited about the possibilities for quick and _relatively static_ XML based graphic generation. But for an extremely slow animation SVG hogs my CPU @100% on an Athlon 1.2Ghz.

Re:SVG vs. Flash

[Khalid]

> Here's one good reason why you'd want to implement Flash instead of SVG: SVG is Slooow.

I am not sure what this really means. This is like saying XML is slow, or better HTML is slow. SVG is a standard, you will have slow, and quick implementations, maybe current implementation have not been really optimised yet, but there is no real reason SVG might be intrinscly slow

Re:SVG vs. Flash

[FooBarWidget]

You mean Flash isn't slow? The Flash plugin it takes 10 to 20 seconds to load, and when it's finally loaded, it hogs 90-100% CPU! And I'm using an Athlon 1.4 Ghz.

Re:SVG vs. Flash

[Anonymous Coward]

10 to 20 seconds to load? Something must be wrong with your system cause it shouldn't take that long. Now the movies can take forever to load because a lot of people make bad flash movies.

Re:SVG vs. Flash

[tshak]

This is like saying XML is slow.

Well, it is, and that's what I'm saying. XML is slow. Don't get me wrong, I use XML all the time - just not to generate animated vector graphics. Binary will always win on the performance front, and intensive graphics applications still need all the performance that it can get.

Re:SVG vs. Flash

[KidSock]

Here's two good reasons why you want to implement SVG instead of Flash:

SVG is a standard, Flash is proprietary.
SVG can be indexed and searched, Flash can't.

Man I don't know spit about Flash or SVG and I didn't read your link but I'm willing to bet that SVG couldn't touch Flash with a 10 foot pole.

SVG Plugin from Corel

[schepers]

Last week, Corel announced a preview plugin (Windows only, for now), so Adobe isn't the only game in town.
They also have a gallery with some neat SVG samples.

Re:SVG for OSS Fonts

[wombatmobile]

Embedded vector fonts are part of the SVG specification.

Here's an example.

To create SVG fonts, print anything with SVGmaker.

The free demo creates fonts you can reuse in your own SVG doc.

SVG + script = Enterprise web app

[wombatmobile]

An SVG document can be UI for enterprise applications integration.

For example, start with this static picture generated from a CAD program.

add some simple polygons and script them to conform with some business logic. Connect to your enterprise applications and databases using various connectors (simulated here) and you get a UI component like this that integrates with HTML.

Click on components to select them.

Ctrl-Click to select a set of components. Move your mouse over the colored components to highlight data in the html table.

Type a number in at the top right [enter] to see if you have enough components available for manufacturing.

This example was coded by hand in a day and a half. Probably could do another one in 3 hours or so now we got the hang of it.

Patented technology

[Citizen of Earth]

I had heard some rumors that SVG contained patented technology with which some organization was not going to play nice. Is this true? Or is SVG royalty-free?

No, SVG is real now

[wombatmobile]

The 1.0 spec has been out for yonks already and there's an active SVG developer community out there.

Adobe has been distributing SVG viewer as part of the Acrobat 5 download for over a year now.

Nobody's waiting for Microsoft to innovate SVG or do their XDocs whatever thing; check these static examples generated from MS apps with SVGmaker: Excel, PowerPoint, Word, Project

For building SVG web applications its true that there aren't comprehensive IDE tools available yet, but that hasn't stopped developers from creating some definitive web apps with simple home grown tools (starting with a text editor since SVG is just XML).

Like this interactive logical diagram

Check this awesome mapping example

And this wonderful airport flight management app.

Magnificent airport management example

[wombatmobile]

Sorry, I got the URL wrong for Hugh Enxing's magnificent airport management example.

It is really here

This is so good!

Like PDF but its XML

[wombatmobile]

SVG is an image format that can faithfully reproduce a document display context, same like PDF but since SVG is XML you can mark it up by hand in a text editor, script it, transform it, integrate it directly with HTML or whatever you like. And no monopoly controls it.

This is a shameless plug but we are only 5 guys working out of a house, not a monopoly... (yet... ho ho ho). In the same way that Acrobat can generate PDF out of anything, SVGmaker can generate SVG out of Windows apps.

These are examples.

Re:Like PDF but its XML

[bcrowell]

What you're doing is great! Good for you!

But...

you can mark it up by hand in a text editor
Well, the last thing I'd normally want to do is create a drawing by marking it up in text using an editor. That's what drawing software is for. This is a little like complaining that ELF is a bad format because it's not easily editable. The way I produce PDF is by converting editable versions (EPS and TeX) into PDF. The way you produce ELF files is by converting the editable version (C) into ELF.

And no monopoly controls it.
Well, PDF is much better supported in open-source software than SVG is. I can click on a PDF hyperlink in Mozilla, and it displays it for me. I can produce PDF from TeX source code using pdftex.

Anyhow, isn't the whole comparison inappropriate? PDF is meant for articles, books, and so on.

Re:SVG VS FLASH

[foniksonik]

Flashscript is no longer the end-all be-all for swf format. FlashRemote supports many server side languages and has excellent support for XML and SQL.

I have been intrigued by SVG ever since it made it's appearance on the scene but the SVG guys seriouly need to make a leg and get moving on authoring tools which support the full gamut of capabilities, ie: this hand coding crap just won't fly in a work flow process or even for JoeAverage doing something for school.

Anyways Adobe has an SVG plugin and you can export any vector + variables + code from illustrator and GoLive as SVG. Still not an authoring tool like Flash though. Macromedia bought and innovated their way to the top of multimedia authoring a while ago and Adobe is still playing catch up in a lot of ways (coming along nicely though).

Re:All this new and fancy stuff...

[foniksonik]

While you're at it why don't you throw out the computer and just handwrite all your snail mail and take three week trips to visit a museum somewhere. Turn on talk radio and live it up with out those 'fancy' moving pictures we call TV. I love reading a good book as much as the next guy but i also appreciate a well thought out (key), GUI that expedites my acquistion of knowledge and or goods.

Besides HTML is ugly.

Sodipodi

[cyba]

Sodipodi uses SVG as its native file format.

Re:All this new and fancy stuff...

[foniksonik]

You should try embedding a symbol font link into the page and provid a download for the font library (assuming your viewers are insular and you have a nice royalty free symbol library).

Re:Awesome

[21mhz]

The GNOME project uses SVG for UI graphics extensively.
For example, see the Scalable Gorilla theme for Nautilus.

pointless until widely supported in browsers

[g4dget]

SVG is a better standard than Flash because it's text based and much easier to manipulate. However, Flash has the authoring tools that web designers use and it ships with almost every browser, whether you want it or not.

The lack of authoring tools for SVG may actually turn out to be an advantage. People doing Flash seem to be mostly using it for things that are very annoying to users, and they are often not doing it very well (that flashing, blinking web interface doesn't resize, for example). SVG may turn out to be a better and more acceptable format for vector graphics than Flash precisely because the people who shouldn't use it don't know how to anyway (of course, that blessed state will not last long--if it catches on, Macromedia will output SVG, too).

But until SVG becomes supported out of the box, with no plugins, by IE and Mozilla, it won't catch on much. Microsoft may support SVG in IE just to spite Macromedia--let's hope so. But it is incomprehensible to me why Mozilla has been so slow to offer SVG support: it already has all the XML parsing and graphics primitives built in--why is SVG support so difficult?

Re:pointless until widely supported in browsers

[Queuetue]

SVG actually is supported quite nicely in mozilla. It's not on in the default builds, though, due to licensing issues with the libart library. (It's LGPL only, Moz is MPL/GPL/LGPL)

Re:pointless until widely supported in browsers

[chris_lilley]

SVG support has been a difficult issue in Mozilla because of the rich canvas. As you say, the XML parser and DOM and CSS parser and inheritance and XLink simple linking and JPEG and PNG and ECMAscript are there already.

The Mozilla SVG project started off by using Raph Levien's rendering library libart, which is only licensed to be used under the terms of the LGPL and not the standard Mozilla MPL/GPL/LGPL tri-license.

So, that licensing issue held up getting SVG code into the trunk, and when it was in ther trunk, stopped it being in the core builds (it was there in CVS and could be enabled at compile time). It worked on Linux, MacOS, Windows, etc - it was very cross platform code but there was the licensing issue.

A new approach is to split the rendering code into platform-independent and platform-dependent parts. A test of this approach is available from the croczilla site (which has a bunch of great examples too) - there is a build that uses the GDI+ renderer suplied with Windows 2000/XP. Clearly, this avoids the license issue o the rendering library and clearly, it means there needs to be a separate platform layer for each supported OS (darwin on MacOS X, perhaps different linux layers for Gnome or KDE, etc)

I know the Netscape folks are aware of this, too, because I visited Netscape and gave them a demo which included Mozilla SVG among other things.

Re:Awesome

[WowTIP]

Now, hold your horses.

Saying that Gnome uses SVG extensively is an exaggeration at this point. The only use of SVG in Gnome so far, is for rendering icons on the desktop and in Nautilus. There are plans for letting other UI elements be SVG based to, but they are just plans. If you plan using SVG icons as desktop icons you also better make some PNG renderings of them too, if you want the same theme in the panel and menus, since you can't use SVG there yet.

Also, Nautilus SVG renderer seems kind of incomplete in one way or another. SVG images that works in Sodipodi, Adobe viewer, Illustrator and Mozilla SVG, renders incorrectly in Nautilus. Wrong colours, missing gradients.

And, Scalable Gorilla isn't an example, it is the only SVG theme available. A very nice looking theme though. :)

Missing something?

[Tokerat]

Everyone is talking about how SVG makes for a nice interactive site and will replace Flash/etc. as a nice defined standard. But what about audio? I didnt' see it mentioned in the specs... Of course SVG stands for Scalable Vector Graphics, but what will be done to handle synchronized audio on a web site? Will the old DOM and JavaScript take care of this? What about if I want an SVG-pure page?

Or am I missing something blatantly obvious in the specs?

Re:All this new and fancy stuff...

[DarkVein]

Heh. You'll like XHTML 2.0. XHTML 2.0 only deals with the markup of information for contextual representation. Paragraphs, lists, lines, links, and tables. Oh, and objects /> has been banished. All the presentational stuff is done with CSS. Check out the W3C's core stylesheets project. The object tag allows you to fall-through to the least-prefered format for an information object svg->flash->png->gif->text, if you like. Neat stuff.

Re:Awesome

[WowTIP]

Let me quote myself: "The only use of SVG in Gnome so far...".

Yes, there are goodies on the way, but right now, the only things in Gnome you can replace with SVG are icons. :)

Re:Awesome

[WowTIP]

Ok, I correct myself. There is more than plans, but nothing released yet, as far as I can tell. :)