SVG On the Rise

AShocka writes "The W3C has just released Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) 1.1 and Mobile Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) 1.1 as W3C Recommendations. W3C Fellow Dean Jackson has an article, on O'Reilly Network titled SVG On the Rise, in reply to Jacek Artymiak's article SWF Is Not Flash (and Other Vectored Thoughts). Also check out Dean's SVG answer to Powerpoint presentations at Visualising the Semantic Web in SVG."

Comments

Correction

[Anonymous Coward]

That should read:

The W3C has just released Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) 1.1 and Mobile Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) 1.1 as W3C Recommendations.

For idiots like me -

[Omkar]

Can anyone summarize this technology with its advantages, disadvantages and impact?

Re:For idiots like me -

[Anonymous Coward]

Scalable Vector Graphics -- since it uses formulas (XML entities, really) for specifying where lines and shapes go instead of specifying location per-pixel, filesize will be small. Don't worry about XML verbosity preventing this, as SVG-files often are compressed.

The availability of libraries as Batik makes SVG-generation flexible and easy. One example: One project I was on concentrated on pulling numbers out of a database and visualising them as a graph. Filling a XML-document with values and applying XSLT we had instant SVG. Upside: Very scalable and interactive (our customer was very fond of "hotspots" on the graph). Downside: Lack of plugins. Fortunately, it was for their intranet.

As to impact, I do hope this catches on. I much prefer coding Java + SVG than Flash, if just for the fact that not having the Flash-plugin doesn't prevent my regular development with SVG.

Re:For idiots like me -

[smittyoneeach]

SVG-files often are compressed.
The O'Reilly link mentioned use of gzip to effect this.
Should, say, a Monopoly Short-circuit that with some proprietary scheme,
one hopes that the market would break from its traditional hooverism and respond accordingly.
OK, I'm thinking wishfully...

Re:For idiots like me -

[cioxx]

Lets start with disadvantages. Not many browsers support SVG in it's current form. Somehow the plugin is tied to Adobe, which the call the "recommended viewer". (Read: No rock-solid native browser support in IE, or in Mozilla/Phoenix)

No widespread use. (Yes, I don't give a fuck if W3C is their mothers collectively endorse SVG, it was even dead before it got invented). Macromedia Swiff (.sfw) format is NOT closed source, and you have a better chance reaching your audience with it. Some people confuse .swf with Flash, and that's not the case. Now that you can import SWF into major Presentation titles, there is no reason why SVG could be of any use.

As for advantages, it's based on XML spec, but then again, not everything that carries the name XML is something to go nuts over.

In conclusion, I've been hearing how SVG was going to EXPLODE onto the web and portables in the next few years, and it never happened. That's what people were saying back in late 90's.

Re:For idiots like me -

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm a .NET programmer so I personally used the component from this page, which includes a brief introduction on SVGs, however in general SVGs represent the benefits of vector graphics over raster/bitmapped graphics (smaller size, print better, and scale better). It's unfortunate that everyone can only see SVGs as competition to Flash (I see SVGs as competitions to GIFs and PNGs personally), however it should be noted that it is a virtual certainty that Microsoft will include native SVG support in the next Internet Explorer. Overnight SVG will become the premiere vector format despite all the Flash kiddies ranting on about how "open" Flash is (these must be the same people who call Java open).

In other words, if you're looking to create a cartoon on the web with nice tools and full multimedia synchronization then take a look at Flash and its tools today, but if you want to add vector graphics to a corporate intranet and so, definitely look at SVGs. One of the biggest features of SVGs that got me interested in the first place was the ability to completely embed the graphic in the webpage: While this goes against the spirt of HTML, this composite page was a godsend for a site which allowed users to email or download single file (i.e. non-zipped) reports.

Re:For idiots like me -

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, kde is massively moving towards svg after kde 3.1 is done. That means most of the new icons are going to be svg, and konqueror is going to support it...

I don't know, but that looks like it might be a good idea.

Re:For idiots like me -

[cioxx]

I'm sure KDE could benefit from it greatly. As for web, forgetaboutit.

Re:For idiots like me -

[Allen Varney]

Other posts in this thread have listed some disadvantages of SVG, but omitted that a browser plug-in fully implementing the spec weighs in at several megs. This is in contrast to the Flash player, which is still under 500K in the latest version. Not an issue for broadband users, but they are still a minority in the Web world.

Re:For idiots like me -

[Tet]

Macromedia Swiff (.sfw) format is NOT closed source, and you have a better chance reaching your audience with it.

Yes and no. Sure, it'll work fine for the majority of the web browsing public. But once browsers start shipping with SVG plugins (or just native support) by default, then so will SVG. No one is arguing that SWF is the more mature, and more widespread format at the moment. But what about the content itself? If it's all in SWF, then it won't appear on search engines, so you're far less likely to have visitors driven to your site in the first place. SVG content, on the other hand, will be picked up so that Auntie Millie will find her cookie recipe in Google, even if the site in question uses an animated cookie chef to convey it's information. Furthermore, she'll be able to get at the content even if she's blind and using a braille terminal, or if she's using her mobile phone. The same can't be said of SWF. I agree that Flash is a pretty good product, but it suffers from three critical flaws, which have prevented me from using it to date. Firstly, it doesn't degrade if you browser isn't able to support it. Secondly, it changes the usage pattern of a browser. You want to go to the previous page? Click the back button. You want to open a new tab? Press Ctrl-T. You want to search for a given string? Ctrl-F. But not in Flash. Admittedly, Flash MX has made some progress in that area, but it's still got a long way to go. Finally, search engines won't index Flash content. SVG remedies all of those deficiences, which is why I hope to see it succeed.

Re:For idiots like me -

[IamTheRealMike]

We use it a lot at work for visualising maps. It's really catching on for cartography, and we're currently experimenting with what it can do. I had quite a bit of success using SVG for a query interface to a geographic database (a bond style zoomable map no less :).

One issue is the only viewer that actually implements all the spec is the Adobe one, which revs infrequently and doesn't work in Mozilla. For development I ended up needing to run IE with the plugin under Wine so I could work on Linux. Performance is also a concern.

So - this time around I'm using the Moz native support, which is pretty good. SVG may never replace Flash (and so what if it doesn't) but there are a whole host of uses for vector graphics outside animations on the web.

Re:For idiots like me -

[Master Bait]

Think of it as being like 2D VRML, which also hasn't made the long-term inpact it should have.

Re:For idiots like me -

[Anonymous Coward]

And when I can get flash native on FreeBSD and working with Mozilla, then I'll give a damn.

Otherwise, I can get Mozilla/SVG working on FreeBSD.

Re:For idiots like me -

[lobsterGun]

Unless I'm mistaken, the SVG plugin is built right in to IE6 and above. Most windows users have it and don't even know it.

Re:For idiots like me -

[Anonymous Coward]

You are mistaken. The Flash player is shipped with IE.

Microsoft also has an obsolete proprietary standard called VML that's supposedly going to be replaced with SVG at some point.

Re:For idiots like me -

[Anonymous Coward]

"But once browsers start shipping with SVG plugins (or just native support) by default, then so will SVG"

And when will this be?

+ Microsoft promised support a while back, but nothing's happened yet.
+ Mozilla/Netscape's SVG project is dead, AFAICT.
+ Adobe suspended development on their plugin, apparently. (last update was in 2001)

Also there's the little matters of 1) large download size and 2) It takes $$$ to get a 3rd party plugin bundled with IE or Netscape.

-- speculation about blindness and mobile phones --

I haven't seen any evidence that SVG "degrades gracefully" at all -- it either shows up or it doesn't, just like any other plug-in data.

Re:For idiots like me -

[alannon]

Adobe's SVG plugins seem to support Windows 98-XP, MacOS 9 & X, Linux (Red Hat 7.1) and Solaris. That seems like a pretty well-rounded portfolio. What other support could you even hope for from Adobe? FreeBSD? BeOS?

Re:For idiots like me -

[Anonymous Coward]

I was not complaining about Adobe's (very nice) selection of OS-support; I was just lamenting that there are so few other quality SVG plugins.

--Kjell.

Re:For idiots like me -

[Allen Varney]

Every time Flash comes up in a Slashdot thread, there's always some poster who hasn't heard of Flash MX saying "It doesn't support search engines, Unicode, accessibility, or the back button." The MX version has been out about a year now -- isn't it time to update your talking points?

"It doesn't degrade if you browser isn't able to support it." And that browser would be -- what, Lynx? Which also lacks SVG support, and always will.

As for "the majority of the Web browsing public," that's a very mild way of saying that the Flash plug-in is (according to Macromedia) the most pervasive software in the world, with over half a billion users. Given that Flash MX has strong XML support, and that it's now targeting "rich Internet applications" instead of ordinary vector animation, SVG has a long uphill battle ahead.

Re:For idiots like me -

[v(*_*)vvvv]

instead of specifying location per-pixel, filesize will be small

You are talking about the difference between raster and vector image formats. Just because it is a vector format does not make it small. Also, I think only BMP and the like specify per-pixel data as-is. GIF, JPG and others are formats that avoid this to achieve efficiency.

Re:For idiots like me -

[Anonymous Coward]

the flash player ships with ie, not the svg player.

Re:For idiots like me -

[smallpaul]

"It doesn't degrade if you browser isn't able to support it." And that browser would be -- what, Lynx?

Yes, and the browsers in mobile computers. And the browsers that blind people use.

Which also lacks SVG support, and always will.

Doh! That's why the fact that SVG degrades gracefully is important! SVG can have XHTML or GIF alternate code embedded.

Re:For idiots like me -

[kwoo]

Other posts in this thread have listed some disadvantages of SVG, but omitted that a browser plug-in fully implementing the spec weighs in at several megs.

Last time I built Amaya it only weighed in at several megs itself -- and it's a browser, WYSIWYHYGOOB (What You See Is What You Hope You Get On Other Browsers) XHTML editor, and to the best of my knowledge, fully supports SVG and MathML (which although unrelated, is nice if you don't have LaTeX2HTML or HeVeA handy).

Re:For idiots like me -

[Anonymous Coward]

Yawn, let us know when you've caught up with GNOME's SVG use, kay?

Re:For idiots like me -

[KewlPC]

Well, few (actually, none that I know of) raster graphics formats contain data in the form:
At X, Y, the pixel color should be RGB

Rather, it's just a long array of data, with a few bytes of header information before that (to specify things like X size, Y size, color depth, etc.).

Some formats, like TIFF, are more flexible than this, but all formats generally follow the same layout.

Compressed image formats aren't much different, except that there's some extra information in the header that specifies things like where each scanline starts, the amount of compression, etc.

Re:For idiots like me -

[Allen Varney]

Yes, and the browsers in mobile computers. And the browsers that blind people use.

There are Flash players for various models of cellphones and PDAs already, and more in the works. And Flash MX supports what Macromedia calls "assistive technologies functionality." It complies with government standards for .gov Web site accessibility by the blind and disabled.

SVG can have XHTML or GIF alternate code embedded.

Seems to me a Web page designer who can embed alternate XHTML code would find it trivial to implement a Javascript or other server-side check for the presence of the Flash client, then "degrade" to static pages as needed. Even if SVG becomes a widespread standard, I could imagine a lot of pages checking for Flash first, then "degrading" to SVG -- because Flash files are compressed binaries, far smaller than the equivalent SVG.

Re:For idiots like me -

[smallpaul]

There are Flash players for various models of cellphones and PDAs already, and more in the works.

The devices that Flash is deployed upon (e.g. Nokia's 9210 Communicator, soon) are much more hefty than the ones SVGt is being optimized for (e.g. Nokia's 3650 and 7650). Furthermore, SVG is being sold with the platform, such as TI's OMAP chipset platform. That chipset has a huge percentage of the cell phone market.

And Flash MX supports what Macromedia calls "assistive technologies functionality."

Nevertheless, SVG's markup-based, HTML-integrated syntax is much better optimized for accessibility.

Flash's licensing model is inherently anti-accessibility because it does not allow the creation of competitive "viewers" including viewers optimized for blind people. SVG is not so-encumbered.

Seems to me a Web page designer who can embed alternate XHTML code would find it trivial to implement a Javascript or other server-side check for the presence of the Flash client, then "degrade" to static pages as needed.

Those are the kinds of hacks that make the Web much less easy to index, download and otherwise manipulate. Scripting is a fallback, to be reserved for exceptional tasks.

Even if SVG becomes a widespread standard, I could imagine a lot of pages checking for Flash first, then "degrading" to SVG -- because Flash files are compressed binaries, far smaller than the equivalent SVG.

SVG files can also be compressed binaries. GZIP compression is a required part of the specification. That's the better way to do binary compression because almost every language and platform has a gzip implementation.And because they use mathematical animation rather than frame-based animations, they will often be smaller than Flash files. Try again!

To me, the issues are clear. Flash has a much better existing toolbase and a much larger deployed audience. SVG has a much stronger technical architecture and is achieving rapid uptake in all sorts of verticals. It will take years for SVG to seriously challenge Flash. But when it does, SVG will win because its technology is so much stronger and it is a true standard which already has literally hundreds of cooperating tool implementations for every language, platform and application and will have thousands in the not-too-distant future.

flash - SVG

[Anonymous Coward]

Does anyone know whether Macromedia Flash can export to SVG or - if not - any such features are planned for a future version?

Good kudos to Macromedia if they would.

Re:flash - SVG

[mikechambers]

the flash authoring tool cannot currently export SVG. However, it is possible to render SVG (or at least a subset) within the Flash Player.

For more info see:

http://actionscript-toolbox.com/svgnotes.php

http://www.macromedia.com/desdev/mx/flash/articles /parse_svg.html

also, if you would like to see svg support within the Flash authoring tool, you can request it here. Please be sure to include why you would like it and what it would enabled you to do. mike chambers mesh@macromedia.com

What tool was used to create the evolve.svg file?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm wondering what tool was specifically used to create that SVG. I have used SVG to some degree, but the idea of writing SVG manually strikes me as a little more difficult than say, html.

So...

[Anonymous Coward]

SWF - Propietary format, but easy to make via wizards and so forth for the 16 year old web designer in your neighborhood. Flash 5/MX easily warezed which nullifies some cost concerns fro the less scrupulous. Well known.

SVG - Free format, but requires a foreknowledge of XML. Well supported by the mobile industry and some pretty heavy hitters, but not particularily known by the public.

Will both be implemented equally or will one ever edge out the other? Are we really going to have to suffer through Flash for much longer?

Re:So...

[Anonymous Coward]

"Are we really going to have to suffer through Flash for much longer?"

Are we really going to have to suffer through constant statements that SWF is proprietary when it is not?

How is Flash making you suffer? I find it elating. If it's the usual I hate Flash sites because they make me wait and so forth let me say that there are also horrible HTML sites, and when SVG is fully supported and use is widespread there will be horrible SVG content on sites as well. Going to point a finger at SVG then as well?

Re:So...

[mosch]

you can save graphics from illustrator into svg format, no knowledge of xml required.

Re:So...

[Anonymous Coward]

"and when SVG is fully supported and use is widespread there will be horrible SVG content on sites as well. Going to point a finger at SVG then as well?"

Yes. Flash is fine for funny little games and tiny little tidbits as part of a normal site, but obnoxious when the entire website is done in it (which is the direction MX seems to be pushing). Also, flash intros == stupid.

And please replace 'propietary' with 'not a web standard/owned by a big stinky corporation'. Thanks.

Re:So...

[Anonymous Coward]

Flash is also fine for interface elements, static elements, elearning applications, multimedia applications, etc.

Again, people can create what they want with any technology. It's not the fault of the technology. Sure Flash Intros are annoying. Guess what, SVG intros will be annoying too.

Why is Macromedia a "big, stinky corporation"? Thanks.

Short summary of SVG

[sgtsanity]

It's vector graphics written using XML-ish code and are thus human readable. And plus, the specification is much more "open-source" than Macromedia's SWF file format is. It also has support for mobile devices, and is just so darned pretty.

SVG && Printing

[schlpbch]

As all graphics are vector based, SVG also has the potential to provide crystal clear, high resolution print-outs instead of the blurred GIFs (or PNG if anyone cares) we get to today.

Re:SVG && Printing

[cioxx]

So do Swiffs (and host of other formats), because they're all vector based.

You consider that an advantage in SVG?

SVG and web authoring don't mix, and why would anyone want to print Gifs or PNGs? Clarify please.

Re:SVG && Printing

[AnarchySoftware]

I think you mean to say all graphics could be described as vectors, even though not all graphic formats use vectors in their implimentation

Re:SVG && Printing

[ergo98]

You talk as if vector graphics are pervasive, yet overwhelmingly examples on the net can show where people convert vector graphics to a raster format (particularly charts, graphs, and maps).

SVG and web authoring don't mix, and why would anyone want to print Gifs or PNGs? Clarify please.

This makes no sense. In the real world most intranets now have HTML reporting functionality (with CSS printing layout), and users print this. SVG is another step in the evolution of that being a credible data information system for corporations.

Re:SVG && Printing

[gaspyy]

Macromedia is already doing this with Flash, they actually try to present it as an alternative to Acrobat.

While it's not nearly as versatile in this area, Flash can be used effectively to print hi-res.

Re:SVG && Printing

[David Gould]

As all graphics are vector based, SVG also has the potential to provide crystal clear, high resolution print-outs instead of the blurred GIFs (or PNG if anyone cares) we get to today.

I think you mean to say all graphics could be described as vectors, even though not all graphic formats use vectors in their implimentation

Well, I think he meant to say that when you're using SVG (instead of some other (raster) format), all the elements of your graphics are vector-based. Even though it sounded that way grammatically, since he said "all graphics", he couldn't have meant "all graphics, everywhere, are vector-based", since that would just be too absurdly dumb, and especially since he also specifically contrasted vector graphics with raster formats like GIF. If he thought GIF was vector-based, then what would he think was different about SVG?

If we give him the benefit of the grammatical correction, then it's a valid and interesting point, though it's really more an argument for vector formats in general, and I don't know that I'd have marked it all the way up to (+4, Interesting). I mean, like, duh -- high-resolution rendering has always been, like, the whole point of vector graphics; why else are TrueType and PostScript fonts better than bitmaps?

SodiPodi

[jamesots]

SodiPodi is an SVG editor for Linux and (recently) Windows. It's not complete yet, but from the look of it it should be pretty good when it is.

SVG not (yet?) for presentation

[digitect]

I took a quick look at SVG for a proposal. It required animation with syncronized audio narration so SVG wasn't a possibility. I still don't see that SVG supports this and can't imagine SVG to be even remotely as useful as SWF in the realm of multi-media presentation. Sure it makes sense in more technical applications like mapping or calculated interactive diagrams, but I don't fear we'll be subjected to a rash of slow-loading SVG page banners any time soon. Bit of a shame, actually.

Re:SVG not (yet?) for presentation

[Fastolfe]

SVG is not intended to do synchronized multimedia. The G in SVG stands for "Graphics". If you want to build an all-out presentation with animation and audio, use SMIL in conjunction with SVG (or whatever you want for the graphics/animation side).

Re:SVG not (yet?) for presentation

[smallpaul]

I took a quick look at SVG for a proposal. It required animation with syncronized audio narration so SVG wasn't a possibility.

Perhaps not with the implementation you had available, but SVG was always meant to be used with the Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language (SMIL) which can certainly handle syncronized audio narration.

I still don't see that SVG supports this and can't imagine SVG to be even remotely as useful as SWF in the realm of multi-media presentation. Sure it makes sense in more technical applications like mapping or calculated interactive diagrams, but I don't fear we'll be subjected to a rash of slow-loading SVG page banners any time soon. Bit of a shame, actually.

If this is your only complaint with SVG then you don't really have a complaint with SVG. Tell Adobe, Corel and the other implementors that you want more of SMIL implemented. You also have the option of using Javascript to generate sound, of course...

Re:SVG not (yet?) for presentation

[Anonymous Coward]

>If this is your only complaint with SVG then you don't really have a complaint with SVG. Tell Adobe, Corel and the other implementors that you want more of SMIL implemented.

i thought one of the advantages of svg was that it was open, and didnt rely on proprietary / closed technologies? last i checked both the adobe and corel players were both closed / proprietary programs.

of course, you could just write your own player, but then everyone has to worry about yet another implimentation, and its quirks and problems, leading to lowest common denominator programing, which is generally a pain.

Re:SVG not (yet?) for presentation

[Hibernator]

Adobe SVG Viewer 3 also supports a SMIL 2 implementation of an audio element which can be synchronized with animations. This would allow you to synchronize your audio narration with your vector graphics animations.

Version 4 of Adobe SVG Viewer (renamed Adobe Image Viewer) also supports synchronization of video elements. Unfortunately Adobe Image Viewer only supports viewing SVG files that are embedded in Acrobat PDF files.

Re:SVG not (yet?) for presentation

[digitect]

Sweet, dude! Muchas gracias for the excellent link, I had never heard of SMIL before. (Half the time I post, it's just trolling for more info. ;) It doesn't look so mature, have you used it or know of any examples you can point me to?

Thanks again.

Re:SVG not (yet?) for presentation

[smallpaul]

i thought one of the advantages of svg was that it was open, and didnt rely on proprietary / closed technologies? last i checked both the adobe and corel players were both closed / proprietary programs.

SVG is a specification. There are open source and closed source implementations of the specification. That's the virtue of having a standard. You can choose to use the product that has the licensing that you agree with. Proprietary products do not give you that freedom.

of course, you could just write your own player, but then everyone has to worry about yet another implimentation, and its quirks and problems, leading to lowest common denominator programing, which is generally a pain.

Why would you write your own player rather than working with librSVG and Mozilla SVG?

Re:SVG not (yet?) for presentation

[Anonymous Coward]

I've done some SMIL and it works in IE5.5+ and Realplayer (but only if you're careful, and don't use the MS TIME extensions).

Any search will turn up dozens of SMIL examples.

I've only hand-coded it. I'm not sure how good the design tools are.

Re:SVG not (yet?) for presentation

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, the way that I did it was to take the Docbook format and run some XSLT over it to output SMIL. Handcoding SMIL was as boring and tedious as handcoding XSL-FO - if you don't know XSLT handcoding will probably be your only choice.

Re:SVG not (yet?) for presentation

[Anonymous Coward]

I like the SMIL support that svg has - Indeed the Adobe Viewer works well with it. I think the SVG wiki has some details.

Re:SVG not (yet?) for presentation

[Anonymous Coward]

or just use flash and then people will actually be able to view your content.

Ahh, the advancement of graphics.

[FreeLinux]

It's amazing how graphics formatting is "advancing". But, SVG is a telling format for the future.

I predict that within the next 5 years W3 will have another new, "better", standard. It will rely on embeding the graphics in the web pages themselves, similar to SVG. But, it will greatly simplify programming with its Reduced Instruction Set Code(RISC). The code syntax will consist only of Peek(x,y) and Poke(x,y). Simple huh?

Some Goodies

[webword]

Flash Player for Linux (Obvious)

Flash Usability (Flazoom!)

SWF Extractor (Windows prgrams that extracts images and mp3 files from a SWF file as separate files)

Unlock SWF (Open up compressed SWF files)

SWiSH (Low cost alternative to Macromedia)

Re:Some Goodies

[mikechambers]

fyi, the link to the linux flash player you have is 4 years old.

you can download all of the latest flash player, including linux, solaris and os x from:

http://www.macromedia.com/shockwave/download/alter nates/

SWF is not a proprietary format.

[Anonymous Coward]

OpenSWF.org has the
documents.

SWF is the file format used by Macromedia Flash to deliver graphics, animation and sound over the Internet. Almost 95% of web users can view SWF content without having to install a new plug-in, and over 300 million people have downloaded the Flash player. Macromedia published the specifications for SWF in April 1998

Re:SWF is not a proprietary format.

[mikechambers]

you can find the flash 6 file format specification here:
http://www.macromedia.com/software/flash/open/lice nsing/fileformat/

Re:SWF is not a proprietary format.

[smallpaul]

The license does not allow the creation of Flash players that compete with Macromedia's, or the creation of tools that read Flash and output something else (like SVG). That's hardly open.

Re:SWF is not a proprietary format.

[some guy I know]

The license does not allow the creation of Flash players that compete with Macromedia's, or the creation of tools that read Flash and output something else (like SVG). That's hardly open.

I don't see that anywhere in the license.
The license does place some restrictions on the contents of any SWF files produced (must not have errors, must be playable on latest player, etc.); but I don't see anywhere that it states that other file formats can't be output, nor do I see anywhere that it states that competing products cannot be created.

Unfortunately, I can't download the specification itself, because the form requires that Javascript be enabled to be able to download the specification.

Re:SWF is not a proprietary format.

[smallpaul]

The license does place some restrictions on the contents of any SWF files produced (must not have errors, must be playable on latest player, etc.); but I don't see anywhere that it states that other file formats can't be output, nor do I see anywhere that it states that competing products cannot be created.

The license says: You aren't allowed to use specification to create applications that do NOT output SWF: i.e. other players. Don't you think that if they wanted to allow products that either "import" or "output" SWF they would have said so? They didn't, so they didn't mean that.

Re:SWF is not a proprietary format.

[some guy I know]

I just don't see that anywhere in the license.
The only thing I see that comes close are restrictions 3d and 3e, which I interpret to mean that if the product outputs SWF files, then it must adhere to those restrictions.
If they wanted to state that the product must output SWF files, they should have made that statement unconditionally, and then stated the types of SWF files that must be output.
For example, instead of "You agree that your Product must output SWF files that can playback without Errors in the latest versions of the Microsoft Windows, Apple Macintosh ...", they should state "You agree that your Product must output SWF files, and these files must be playable without Errors in the latest versions of ...".

The restrictions in their license are analogous to "You must speak quietly in the library", which doesn't mean that you must speak and speak quietly, but rather means that if you speak, you must speak quietly.
So I interpret those restrictions to be in effect only if my app outputs SWF files, not that it must output SWF files.

Even if statements 3d and 3e mean that the product must always output SWF files, it doesn't mean that the product can't output other things (such as video output to the screen).
Just output the SWF file to /dev/null.

Caveat: IANAL, but my interpretation seems sensible to me.

Re:SWF is not a proprietary format.

[smallpaul]

The license says that you can use the specification ONLY for the production of software that outputs SWF: you are granted a nonexclusive license to use the Specification for the sole purposes of developing Products that output SWF.

Sole purpose. No other purpose. I.e., not for the purpose of import or viewing. Why would they use the words "sole purpose" if they intended to leave other options open? why would they use the word "output" without mentioning "input???"

Re:SWF is not a proprietary format.

[some guy I know]

OK, I missed that part, but even that can be interpreted such that "sole" applies to "developing", as opposed to something like "reverse-engineering" or "critizing" or "using to develop a competing standard".
That is, the only thing that I can use it for is developing an application that outputs SWF.
If the application outputs SWF, then I can use the specs to develop other parts of the app that may do other things, like display SWF.

If they did not want a developer to develop an application that did other things, they should have worded it something like "you are granted a nonexclusive license to use the Specification for the sole purposes of developing Products whose sole purpose is to output SWF".

Re:SWF is not a proprietary format.

[smallpaul]

The only way to figure out which interpretation if normative is to take the contract in front of a real judge as part of a court case. I personally have better things to do. I think that my interpretation would win out but either way no corporation I have ever worked for has been risk-tolerant enough to look at a license, admit that there are two plausible readings of it and start developing based on their hope that their reading is the correct one. Furthemore, even according to your interpretation, it is impossible to make an app that ONLY inputs and does not output Flash...i.e. a competitor to FlashMX. Yes, you could probably play semantic games to get around that but I'll come back to my point that your games will only be verified as legitimate once you are in front of the judge and by that time you've already wasted a bunch of money on lawyers. And anyhow, most judges are smart enough to see when you're playing games to get around a license.

Re:SWF is not a proprietary format.

[some guy I know]

I wasn't thinking in terms of a corporation making a product.
(I am sure, in that case, that the wise thing to do would be to put the thing in front of the company's corporate lawyer, and/or possibly ask Macromedia for clarification on that point.)
I was instead thinking about somebody implementing an open-source version of an SWF player, or an open-source utility that converts SWF to SVG, etc.
However, I have since actually read the spec (after getting it from another source that did not require me to enable scripting in my browser), and have determined that that somebody will not be me.

SVG appears to have nearly everything that SWF does, and many things that it doesn't.
(The only exception (that I can find) is the ability of apps outputing SWF to gracefully degrade the SWF stream on-the-fly, depending on network conditions.
Since SVG files, unlike SWF streams, are non-sequential, it is much more problematic, if not impossible, for apps to so this on-the-fly with SVG files.)

Re:SWF is not a proprietary format.

[smallpaul]

Since SVG files, unlike SWF streams, are non-sequential, it is much more problematic, if not impossible, for apps to so this on-the-fly with SVG files.)

In order to use SVG in printers as a replacement for Postscript, it is necessary to have support for streaming. I have reason to believe that this will be supported in the next iteration of SVG. There will probably be an SVG subset (perhaps with appropriate declaration) where all references are backwards.

Please take my advice

[Amsterdam Vallon]

I'm not sure if SVG sucks yet since it's incredibly new and everything, but no one I know has used it.

In theory, it is a good idea, but it is only "widely accepted" (pronounced: "anticipated") by programmers who have been talking trash about Flash usability and want to play with vector art without losing face.

Stick to Flash until SVG picks up some steam. The World Wide Web Consortium has been very optimistic about it, promoting its native-ness in future browsers, but my money's on Flash until it gets all sorted out.

Re:Please take my advice

[smallpaul]

In theory, it is a good idea, but it is only "widely accepted" (pronounced: "anticipated") by programmers who have been talking trash about Flash usability and want to play with vector art without losing face.

SVG has wide usability and even popularity in tasks far beyond Flash's ability. For instance SVG is the standard display format for geographical applications. SVG is used for some scalable KDE icons. SVG can be natively produced using open source software on open source operating systems. SVG is going to be embedded in the next generation of cell phones. SVG is going to be embedded in upcoming printers as a page description language. It is possible to print to SVG as you might print to Postscript or PDF. It is also possible to directly render PDF to SVG. And you will soon be able to output Visio diagrams as SVG. I've even heard of an SVG front-end for NetHack.

The point is that SVG can achieve popularity much greater than Flash's without displacing a single Flash animation. And once it has done that, it will be a small additional step to wipe Macromedia's proprietary, binary crap off of the face of the earth. ;)

By all means, use Flash for the time being. It is the best tool for many jobs. But don't think that SVG is a "theory." It is used by thousands of people in practice, in both commercial and open source projects. There are many businesses dedicated to building SVG tools, and whole industries being re-imagined around SVG. Its recent growth curve is amazing and I'm convinced it will be remembered as being as important as other major W3C specs such as XML and HTML before it.

Re:Please take my advice

[Anonymous Coward]

>SVG has wide usability and even popularity in tasks far beyond Flash's ability.

how is anything you listed beyond the capabilities of flash?

you also see to say "SVG is going to be" a lot. well, for every item you listed, flash and the flash player is already there.

i suggest that you learn some more about flash and its capabilities before you start listing things that it can or cannot do, or compare it to svg.

Re:Please take my advice

[smallpaul]

Okay then, you give ME some links as I gave. Show me KDE icons in Flash (as I showed KDE icons in SVG). Show me Flash being used as a page description language by a major printer manufacturer. Show me someone rendering PDF to Flash. Show me a tool for doing "Print to Flash". Show me Web phone standards like 3GPP which require Flash. Show me an open source Flash editor for Linux. etc.

Re:Please take my advice

[v(*_*)vvvv]

SVG is for vector graphics. If you haven't noticed, FLASH is much more than that.

And FLASH will always be popular for dynamic graphics and interactive content.

Re:Please take my advice

[smallpaul]

SVG is for vector graphics. If you haven't noticed, FLASH is much more than that.

The point is that SVG is the last important piece of the suite of Web standards that will make Flash redundant. Javscript replaces Actionscript. SMIL replaces Flash animation. And finally, SVG replaces Flash vector graphics.

And FLASH will always be popular for dynamic graphics and interactive content.

Here's a hint no technology will "always" be popular. Technology evolves. If you're in the "Flash business" then you owe it to yourself to ask what will eventually replace Flash. If it isn't SVG then it will be something else.

Re:Please take my advice

[qbwiz]

Has anyone ever considered "Display SVG," like "Display Postscript?"

Re:Please take my advice

[v(*_*)vvvv]

no technology will "always" be popular

Right. And some technology will never be popular. And some people never like certain technologies. No one lives forever. etc. etc.

If it isn't SVG then it will be something else.

Sure. But I still don't see much point in comparing FLASH and SVG. SVG is just a graphics format. It is closer to PDF than it is to FLASH. SVG+DHTML will not replace FLASh though, simply because DHTML sucks. 90% of your work will go towards work-arounds, and it will still be slow, unstable, and disfunctional.

I do not like FLASH because of the software. They also just raised the price believing they can pull an Adobe on the market.

But I have stronger doubts when it comes to these so called web standards. They are just adding to the heap of spagetti-bloat-ware. And it is going to be quite some time before SVG reaches critical mass. FLASH already has. And FLASH will let you do more, more reliably. That is what FLASH developers pay for.

I am sure you've seen enough bad FLASH to make you sick of it, but just wait til you see the bad SVG.

Re:Please take my advice

[smallpaul]

Sure. But I still don't see much point in comparing FLASH and SVG.

It is true that pundits tend to focus on this when it is not the biggest deal.

SVG is just a graphics format. It is closer to PDF than it is to FLASH. SVG+DHTML will not replace FLASh though, simply because DHTML sucks.

There is no such standard as DHTML. The standards that can work together to replace Flash (and do much more than Flash can!) are SVG, SMIL and ECMAScript. Of course you can also mix in XHTML, XSLT, XForms and other XML vocabulary but that takes the mix far beyond Flash.

90% of your work will go towards work-arounds, and it will still be slow, unstable, and disfunctional.

Javascript implementations are converging on the ECMAscript standard. But let's presume that this was not the case. What you are saying is: "standards can be implemented in a non-standard way and this causes problems." But think about that, who is implementing the standards in a non-standard way? Mostly Microsoft. Why? Because they want to kill standards because interoperability promotes competition. You're making Microsoft's argument for them. And Macromedia is deep in bed with them also. For your own protection you should be criticing the source of the bad "dHTML" implementations (Microsoft) rather than the standards that are being abused.

I do not like FLASH because of the software. They also just raised the price believing they can pull an Adobe on the market.

In the absence of standards you are at the whim of the monopoly vendor.

But I have stronger doubts when it comes to these so called web standards. They are just adding to the heap of spagetti-bloat-ware.

Quite the opposite. Whereas proprietary standards like PDF, Flash and VML share _nothing_ in syntax or semantics, XHTML, XForms and SVG share a lot of syntax and concepts which allows implementations to be smaller and less bloated. If we just cede the Web to proprietary vendors, the whole thing will become nightmarishly bloated because the bits from Microsoft won't be integrated with the bits from Macromedia which won't be integrated with the bits from Adobe. etc.

And it is going to be quite some time before SVG reaches critical mass. FLASH already has. And FLASH will let you do more, more reliably. That is what FLASH developers pay for.

It is not correct to say that Flash is "more popular" or "more reliable" without addressing the audience and market. Among cartographers, SVG is more popular. SVG either already is or soon will be more popular among scientists. SVG is already more popular as an interchange format between graphics programs and as a visualization for XML-based data. SVG already ships with chipsets for mobile phones and will probably soon ship with the phones built on top of those chipsets. Flash is more popular and reliable for public applications on the public Internet. Yes. But SVG can become more popular than Flash -- in total -- without even touching that particular application. But of course there will be a day where SVG and Flash compete head to head and it will be the young Turk versus the established veteran. Irresistable force versus unmovable object.

I believe SVG will win based on the fact that it has superior technology, it is better integrated with Web standards and XML, it is standardized and backed by more companies (e.g. Adobe, Corel, Canon, Nokia, to a certain extent Microsoft) and based in large part on the fact that Flash has failed to live up to the promise of vector graphics. Most vector graphics on the Web are NOT Flash: they are GIF/PNG. That's a very sad fact and if Flash was going to solve the problem it probably would have done so already. SVG is the solution. Handling the 10% of vector graphics that is in Flash is a small side-task compared to the main one of banishing GIFs of words, lines, circles etc.

I am sure you've seen enough bad FLASH to make you sick of it, but just wait til you see the bad SVG.

I'm not concerned about the quality of the work produced. I'm concerned about the quality of the technologies themselves. Flash is poorly integrated with Web architecture and it would need a complete architectural overhaul to fit better. (XML syntax, gzip compression, embeddable in XHTML, open license, support for style sheets, etc.)

Re:Please take my advice

[smallpaul]

I've certainly considered it! But I think that today's SVF implementations are too immature for that. They aren't optimized enough for performance. But I've heard rumours that one or both of Apple and Microsoft are thinking about this. Microsoft has just released their first SVG application (Visio SVG import/export),Apple's new Keynote format is obviouisly SVG-influenced and the OS desktop playes are using SVG for icons, so the right companies are starting to think about SVG. I believe it is only a matter of time.

Re:Please take my advice

[hackmare]

Two important differences between Flash and SVG related to internet-based vector-generated applications

SVG-based systems can be delivered using server with programs written in any language. Currently, you can deliver SVG web applications from Linux, Solaris, and Windows using SVG.pm module, C#, php, python, ASP, and Java through the Apache Batik. There is more info on these on the SVG wiki.
With Flash MX, you are currently limited to Windows servers. This means that you are forced to buy your entire server supply chain from monopolies. This is a Very Bad Thing.

SVG-based systems can be rendered by any internet-capable application. There are over a dozen independant rendering applications available free of charge, covering most operating systems.The Flash 6 viewer can only be downloaded for Windows, and is limited to desktop computers. It is fairly well known that the PC market is down and the bulk of growth on the web will be in portable applications (handhelds, phones, etc). In this market, there is *no* Flash player that I know of. This means that if you build a flash-based app for your windows visitors, you will need to spend that much money again building something for non-PC users.

There are more objective comparisons between SVG and Flash at carto.net.

--Hackmare
Perl SVG.pm evangelist
http://www.roasp.com/

SVG Support

[jaaron]

I have several projects at work right now that use SVG and there are cases where it's wonderful to use. For those interested, I would suggest Apache's Batik project.

The biggest problem I've encountered so far is with Mozilla. Unfortunately, Mozilla's SVG capabilities are non-existant and the current Adobe SVG plugin doesn't work with the brower.

Very well done !

[Krapangor]

Despite the fact that the internet is already tained by flash and other multimedia rubbish, the W3C creates another graphics standard to increase to rubbishness and slughishness of the internet.
Why not a standard for bloating websites (BDF - bloated document format), unreadable graphics rubbish (BEDL - bleeding eye document language) and web browser incompatibility enforcing documents (HCML - hypercrash markup language) ?

Re:Very well done !

[Anonymous Coward]

troll

Re:Very well done !

[Anonymous Coward]

Why don't you just uninstall all your Flash plug-ins?

Also a smart implementation of SVG would allow the disabling of animations (like Mozilla does now with animated GIFs).

This is not rocket science.

Two whiff posts in a row. Wrong again.

[Anonymous Coward]

all graphics are vector based?

raster graphics?

.SWF Is Not Flash?

[Anonymous Coward]

So when some web site sends me a .SWF file, and pheonix tells me I need to install Flash, its wrong?

Re:.SWF Is Not Flash?

[vocaro]

So when some web site sends me a .SWF file, and pheonix tells me I need to install Flash, its wrong?

No, because Flash is the program necessary to read that SWF file.

Re:.SWF Is Not Flash?

[Anonymous Coward]

the flash player is one of many programs that can use / import the swf file.

Mozilla and SVG

[Anonymous Coward]

Looks like Mozilla has a project to supoort SVG The Mozilla SVG Project.

While we are still a long way away from full SVG support, the subset currently implemented is already pretty useable. We have support for all basic shapes including beziers, stroking and filling with opacity and much of the DOM.

The samples at croczilla.com/svg/ should give you a good idea of the features currently implemented.

Big areas where we're still lacking include text, clipping, filters and declarative animations.

Re:Mozilla and SVG

[Anonymous Coward]

If you look at the last modified date on that page, it's over a year old, and so pretty out of date. At present the SVG support in Moz. is pretty good if you download a special build. The main problem is that it fails to display SVG in object or embed tags (unless that bug has been fixed now), which renders much of the adobe focussed SVG on the web useless. There are also issues with licence for the libart (cross-platform) build - libart is only avaliable under the LGPL but Mozilla.org releases have to be released under the MPL/LGPL/GPL tri-licence, so libart can't be incoporated into the Mozilla builds unless it is relicensed (which is AFAIK a possibility).

For all this, the support still isn't as good as the adobe support plugin in IE, but it is being activley developed and eventually native browser support should encourage more people to use SVG.

Re:Mozilla and SVG

[bicho]

How long do you think it will take Machintosh to implement in on safari? or will they rather work along with the Kde guys or change back to mozilla?

Or support mozilla until they come up with something?

SVG Support & Mozilla

[ukryule]

There is a Mozilla project working on SVG support, but it's not yet seriously usable.

It also suffers from a licensing problem: it uses libart, which is licensed under the LGPL, which (for some reason) means it can't be included as standard in mozilla builds.

There is also an Adobe plugin, which does claim to work with mozilla, but it crashes more often than not ...

Re:SVG Support & Mozilla

[eggz128]

The backend for SVG support has recnetly been rewritten to allow plugins for native rendering on different OS's.

For instance, visitors to recent nightlies may notice two options for Win32:

mozilla-win32-svg-GDI-mathml.zip

Which uses a GDI plugin for rendering SVG on win32 and:

mozilla-win32-svg-libart-mathml.zip

Which uses libart :), and so can't be part of the official Mozilla builds as the code isnt tri-licenced under the GPL/LGPL/MPL

(BTW, both builds also include Calendar)

Re:SVG Support & Mozilla

[IamTheRealMike]

Actually it implements most of the spec, there are still bits missing like declarative animation, but so far I'm finding it OK.

libart is incompatable because it needs to be availabe under the Mozilla tri-license, but on Windows it uses GDI+ now anyway so that's only a concern for Linux.

How is it more open source?

[Anonymous Coward]

Macromedia has published the specification.

Vectors Rule!

[jamesjw]

I have always liked vector imaging, being able to export it as a raster image or keep it as a vector to be resized and manipulated easily.

After all, complex 3D models rendered for video presentations, simulations and movies are just complex vectors and can allow easy and proportional scaling.

Not to mention that most vector data compresses alot more than storing a high resolution raster image.

I am all for an open/portable format thats compatable from CAD programs through rendering/moddeling software and raster paint packages. Postscript can do some of this but I find postscript a little too bloated in alot of cases..

Re:Vectors Rule!

[digitect]

I agree, CAD type 3D models via ASCII format is the Holy Grail. In Architecture, our computer tools are still baby-faced. It will be at least another five years before it is common practice to link specification, manufacturing, and schedule information to a 3D object, a model of not only the building but the whole project. (Something most industries, such as aerospace, already do today.) And yet, I think SVG is the first glimpse into this possibility.

Adobe SVG does crash Mozilla 1.x

[_xeno_]

Actually, the Adobe plugin does not work with any 1.x version of Mozilla. It's bug #133567, which you can't access via a link from Slashdot. It's been in the release notes for some time, seeing as there are many people who both use Mozilla for standards compatability and are using SVG as a emerging technology. Of course, now they can't do the two at the same time.

Basically, Adobe used an "unfrozen" API that changed between version 0.9.9 and the 1.0 release, breaking the plugin around the end of March 2002. The bug report contains an interesting back-and-forth between Mozilla and an Adobe developer, where basically the Mozilla developers admit that they completely fucked Adobe with their plugin interface.

(In order to allow scripting with the SVG plugin, they had to use some unfrozen interfaces. Although the interface that seems to cause the most crashes is the network code (nsHttpChannel), if I'm reading the crash dumps correctly.)

It's now 2003, and it appears that Mozilla has sucessfully gotten Adobe to say "screw this" and stop supporting the Mozilla browser all together. I'm hoping that with the release of the 1.1 SVG spec, Adobe will finally release an SVG plugin that works with newer Mozilla builds. But I think the tech evangelism team has successfully made that highly improbable by completely and totally pissing the developers at Adobe off, and this is highly unlikely.

Re:Adobe SVG does crash Mozilla 1.x

[Anonymous Coward]

"It's now 2003, and it appears that Mozilla has sucessfully gotten Adobe to say "screw this" and stop supporting the Mozilla browser all together."

I think Adobe might have said "screw this" and stopped working on their SVG plug all together. There's been no updates since Nov 2001, and Moz-compatibility isn't the only open issue.

Mozilla/Phoenix SVG plugin source here

[Anonymous Coward]

I mean:

Below is the reason why SVG is taking off:

[ Insert link to open-source Mozilla/Phoenix SVG plugin here ]

since the release of above, swarms of linux users have finally accepted SVG as a viable standard.

Re:What tool was used to create the evolve.svg fil

[ergo98]

http://www.w3.org/Graphics/SVG/SVG-Implementations .htm8#svgedit

Most vector graphics packages nowadays have the ability to export SVG as well.

Re:Two whiff posts in a row. Wrong again.

[ergo98]

Absolutely! Of course you're limited to using the "rectangle" primitive with a minimum size of 1.0, a granularity of 1.0, a snap of 1.0, and a maximum width of 1.0. Beyond that small limitation you are fully open to exploit its feature-rich vector implementation.

Mozilla Support

[alanjstr]

The support for SVG in Mozilla isn't very good yet.

Re:Mozilla Support

[Anonymous Coward]

That's an understatement - SVG does not work in Mozilla at all.
It spawns an external viewer - namely, Internet Explorer.

Re:Why can't they arleady do this?

[DrXym]

I don't see what would stop Mozilla using an LGPL library. Even proprietary software can use LGPL libs so long as any changes to the lib itself are made public. And Mozilla certainly isn't proprietary seeing as it's mostly tri-licenced as MPL/LGPL/GPL itself. As all of the source of Mozilla is available via CVS anyone else can grab changes quite easily.

no, but Adobe LiveMotion does

[Anonymous Coward]

no, but Adobe LiveMotion does

Re:no, but Adobe LiveMotion does

[Anonymous Coward]

ummm, no it does not.

adobe kep saying that they would support svg in live motion, and even claim that the support is included in the tool. all they have to do is turn on a switch to activate it.

but alas, they havn't done that, and since they are no longer developing live motion, it is all probably a moot point anway.

Apple's Keynote

[sharrestom]

Keynote is XML based. Am I too assume that SVG is/will be supported?

Re:Apple's Keynote

[Anonymous Coward]

You would assume that, but there seems to be a matter of debate on the subject.

Visit http://xmlhack.com/read.php?item=1865&v=1.

Re:Apple's Keynote

[Anonymous Coward]

Interesting, the commentary seems a bit daft though - I mean, take this line "I wonder what happens if I have "]]>" in one of my slides..."... well, you would just write ]]> as your source, obviously (or the NCR equivalent). It's the different between > and >, and very simple.

Piracy

[vocaro]

I'm not an SWF programmer, but I know enough about it to realize that creating good presentations in Flash is an art form. The Flash author must be a skilled graphic designer as well as a talented programmer. And when these skills are applied to SWF, the results cannot be easily hijacked because of SWF's binary format. It would be like trying to disassemble executable code: possible, but difficult enough to discourage reverse-engineering.

For instance, if the author creates a fancy animation routine as a Flash library and links it in the SWF, other Flash authors cannot easily copy that library and use it in their own projects. With SVG, however, being a pure-text human-readable format, what's to stop an author from viewing the SVG source and doing a cut-and-paste of the library into his own projects? From what I understand of SVG, there is nothing to stop unethical authors from stealing from the hard work of their more talented peers.

This is the one example where SVG's implementation in XML is actually a bad thing. And in my book, it's a huge disadvantage of SVG that Jacek Artymiak's article failed to address. Perhaps it's even the reason why SVG has failed to overtake SWF on the web.

Re:Piracy

[AmbyVoc]

Things can always be done better. Does it make one a pirate if he sees the point in this?

Am I not an artist if I choose to "give" my art to the people to use and learn from?

Does it make me somehow a bad artist if I don't want to get paid for my stuff?

What the heck do you mean by piracy anyway? All the great artists have been copied/plagiarized and most of the great artists have done it themselves. We can even check that out if you like, try classical composers, try painters, try modern musicians... The difference is, nowadays we have big corporations who think they are doing losses because of piracy. I believe the artists aren't often even asked about their opinion in this or then they have been lied to to make them think badly about "piracy".

Are you an artist? Do you want people to enjoy your work, or do you want to cash in by stupidity?

- Voice of Ambience -

Re:Piracy

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually.. Flash suffers similar issues that Java does in regards to decompiling.

You can find Flash decompilers on the web, and they work resonably well. I'm not sure how good Flash obfuscators (if available are), but by itself, the Flash format doesn't protect yoru work from being reuesed.

Re:Piracy

[vocaro]

Things can always be done better. Does it make one a pirate if he sees the point in this?

I wasn't talking about doing things better; I was talking about taking another person's work and making it your own. For example, it's difficult to take a JPG image and change the text of that image. But with SVG, one could easily change the text of a logo from "Your Company, Inc." to "My Company, Inc." -- just do a search-and-replace using a text editor -- while preserving the font, colors, and everything else in the image.

Am I not an artist if I choose to "give" my art to the people to use and learn from?

With SVG, I'm saying you don't have a choice. It forces you to make your code viewable to anyone who views the image, whether you choose to or not.

Does it make me somehow a bad artist if I don't want to get paid for my stuff?

My point is not "art vs. money". I'm saying that if I paint a picture in SVG, the XML nature of that picture allows the image to be modified and decomposed easily by others. This is not possible with other image formats, such as GIF, JPG, or SWF.

What the heck do you mean by piracy anyway?

You're right; piracy is the wrong word. I guess what I should have said was "copyright infringement". SVG makes this much easier than other image formats.

All the great artists have been copied/plagiarized and most of the great artists have done it themselves.

You're talking about stealing artistic styles and ideas. I'm talking about stealing the actual code. One could not easily take the original Mona Lisa and change the background landscape to a picture of a city skyline. But if da Vinci had published his famous work in SVG, then that sort of thing could be done in a simple text editor without altering the original foreground image in any way. Okay, maybe that's a silly example, but I think it gets my point across.

The difference is, nowadays we have big corporations who think they are doing losses because of piracy.

I'm not thinking of big corporations; I'm thinking of myself. Let's say I make a logo in SVG for my webpage and spend a lot of time working on a nice gradient for the background. Then let's say some other webpage author visits my site and says, "Hmm. That's a pretty cool gradient. I don't want to take the time writing SVG code to implement that same gradient, so I think I'll open his SVG code into my text editor, delete the part that draws his logo, and replace it with my logo." So this guy was able to steal my work ("art") and use it for himself, possibly to make money, without any compensation for my time.

Are you an artist?

Do I make a living by creating art? No. Do I make logos and graphics for my web pages? Yes.

Do you want people to enjoy your work, or do you want to cash in by stupidity?

Why can't I do both? I believe an artist should be compensated for his time and effort so that he can continue to make great art.

Re:Piracy

[AmbyVoc]

I'll comment on just one part here.. I believe there is enough compensation in the though that I know I like what I have created. I do it for my own pleasure. If I'd compose a great song, I'd be compensated enough if I heard a radio dj play it on air, or if someone came to me and told me how good (s)he thinks the piece is. If someone wanted to pay me, good, that's perfectly all right, but what I don't want to do is abuse my copyright ownership by locking my work up in any way. If someone wanted to use some of my tricks or anything I've used on any of my songs in theirs I'd be glad they did so. If it was that good it's good to know it continues to live in music of others too. If I was to make a gradient (damn, a gradient??) someone liked and found it useful I wouldn't oppose them using it in their work. Why re-invent the weel? - Voice of Ambience -

Re:Piracy

[Anonymous Coward]

The fact that swf is binary is exactly what prevents me and others from installing the plug-in. I'm not in the habit of letting strangers run arbitrary code on my system. The web for me is about access for info, the fewer contentless flash sites the better IMHO.

Re:Piracy

[GuruJ]

It's not a serious impediment to piracy at all!

From the article: 'many commercial and open source tools exist for generating and parsing SWF files.'

In other words, if you can access the .SWF file, you can decode it back to its original form using standard tools.

Re:Piracy

[Anonymous Coward]

If that's enough compensation for you, then that's good. I, however, am a professional web designer and getting compensated with $$$ is pretty important if I'm going to eat, pay bills, buy my wife some flowers once in a while...

Copyright law exists for a reason. If I take the time and effort to create something and I want to make money from it, then I should be able to do so. Someone else should not be allowed to devalue my work by stealing it.

Again, if you want to give away your work for free, that's your right. If I want to charge money for my work, that's my right. Welcome to a free market economy.

BTW - Even if you are giving away your creative efforts for free, you still haven't given up the copyright to them and it is still illegal for someone to copy them.

Advantages to swf

[angelkey]

None. Number of people using SVG, 3. Number of people supporting SVG, Adobe. Adobe would love to hurt Macromedia any way they know how.

Re:Advantages to swf

[Anonymous Coward]

Totally ignorant. Virtually everyone but Macromedia is heavily pushing SVG, and it is virtually guaranteed to be a core part of IE 7. You, sir, are a buffoon.

A Question of Trust

[satch89450]

Not mentioned anywhere by anyone so far: should we trust Macromedia's plug-in? One reason I don't allow the Flash plug-in to be installed on my computer is that I don't understand everything that it does, and how an author can mis-use the language to do things they shouldn't. Paranoid? Of course.

So I did a search here on the CERT site to see the kinds of headaches that have been reported with Flash. The returned response shows that the plug-in isn't too awful, but still it is bad enough to tilt the scales in my case to not supporting Flash at all, on any platform. YMMV

The same search of the CERT size for "svg" didn't yield anything, but that just means no one has found the hole yet, if there is one. Separating SVG and the multimedia functions means less opportunity for screwing up, or at least confining the exposure of any screwup. Maybe.

Besides, I have yet to find any good use of Flash as a customer -- but then again, I'm a proponent that Web pages should inform, not entertain or mesmorize. Corporate America won't like my attitude, I'm sure.

Re:A Question of Trust

[mikechambers]

here is a link to listing of flash privacy / security resources:

http://www.markme.com/mesh/archives/000068.cfm#000 068

http://www.macromedia.com/v1/developer/securityzon e/

http://www.macromedia.com/desdev/security/

I think one reason you find more security reports for the flash player than any SVG players, is that the Flash player is more widely distributed, and thus more people look for issues in it.

Also, the main SVG player, by adobe, is also closed source, so you run into the same issues of not know what it is doing.

Macromedia has been very responsive about addressing security issues with new player updates, and I don't think there are currently any open security issues which have not been addressed.

The advantages of SVG

[kahei]

I (and thus my company) have found SVG to offer compelling advantages over existing formats. This is in the field of presenting financial data. The main advantages seem to be:

1 -- It's just XML. Whatever can emit XML can emit SVG, from a perl script to a huge j2ee system. Andthe perl script doesn't take long to write because SVG is a compact format that should be intuitive to anyone who understands scene graphs (and anyone else really).

2 -- It's scriptable and interactive. In fact, SVG has an object model that integrates with that of a web page. This makes it easy to provide interactive charts or SVG graphic elements that participate in navigation -- and they'll do the same thing whether they're hosted in a web page or in an application or whatever.

3 -- SVG is predictable and easy to handle. Bitmaps are horrible for presenting detailed technical data -- you can't zoom, you don't know how they'll print, you can't edit them easily when they're finished, they take up space. SVG is small, predictable, and can be 'fixed' by making changes to the text of the file.

4 -- SVG is accurate. It is easy to generate SVG according to precise algorithms and know that the SVG renderer will draw the resulting lines in a predictable way. You do not have scaling/rasterizing issues (at least not as much).

Overall, we have found SVG to be easy to teach, easy to distribute, and produce very good-looking and interactive results. I think it's a big, serious advance in presenting complex data, especially if you need to present it over the web or interactively. I do not see SVG as a replacement for Flash/other pretty picture formats, I see it as a replacement for .gif charts and .ps files, and it does very very well in this role.

It's also a geek-freindly technology -- lots of cool filter toys, easy to integrate with your silly scripting language of choice. I love it :)

Re:another story about SVG

[Anonymous Coward]

what is "emo"?

why SVG is better than SWF

[mlilback]

It is for vector graphics, not animation, sound, and other crap that I refuse to allow my browser to display. And because the player isn't closed-source, a plugin can be written allowing users to disable annoying features like sound, animation, and ad banner sized displays (if it had such features).

I have to disable flash everytime I update a browser or macromedia program, which is very annoying. I have no problem with SVG, since it doesn't make my computer start playing annoying music when I load a web page.

Re:why SVG is better than SWF

[mikechambers]

the current main svg players are closed source.

there is nothing stopping you from writing your own flash player. The flash 6 file format specification is avaliable at:

http://www.macromedia.com/software/flash/open/lice nsing/fileformat/

the issues you have seme to do with the implimentation of the technology, and not the technology itseld.

Re:why SVG is better than SWF

[Anonymous Coward]

read the licence. I'm not allowed to write a competing product.

Re:why SVG is better than SWF

[Skiamorphic]

It's a bit ambiguous. Your sole purpose at the time you agree to the license must be to create content for Flash.

Very well. But note that human purposes change, they enlarge, they deepen, they lead in unexpected directions, and there is nothing in the license to enjoin you from being human.

Re:why SVG is better than SWF

[Anonymous Coward]

Macromedia troll

Re:why SVG is better than SWF

[Anonymous Coward]

Mike Chambers is a Macromedia troll deployed to slag off at SVG.

Why do you think Macromedia does this?

Re:why SVG is better than SWF

[mikechambers]

how am i trolling? you suggests an advantage of SVG was that the players were not closed source. however the current main implimentations are.

that is just fact, not trolling.

Re:why SVG is better than SWF

[si618]

Agreed.

Yes it is well known Mike works for Macromedia and is/was? a public representative of that company.

No he is not trolling, you're incorrect.

SVG and SWF will both have their places, and respective advantages/limitations. Personally I've been learning Actionscript for the last 3 months and have found it quite good.

Pick your poison :)

peace
si

Re:What tool was used to create the evolve.svg fil

[delerdelarosa]

As a multimedia developer, the availability of an advanced tool to create SVG files, as well as the less-than-widespread adoption of the SVG standard, is stopping me presently from devoting any serious amount of time to this initiative. It won't be awhile before developers will invest in SVG development exclusively when you can easily publish in SWF.

SVG Developer Resources

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's where the SVG developers put most of their stuff:

http://www.protocol7.com/svg-wiki/ow.asp?FrontPa ge

zerg

[Lord Omlette]

I can't find it on their website, but according to an email I got, the March '03 issue of Dr. Dobbs Journal is supposed to have an article on SVG if any of you are not content to read about it online.

So where's the SVG authoring apps?

[British]

I'm still waiting for a superior SVG editor/authoring system so I can use all of SVG's competitive features on my website. So far, the only offerings I've seen just aren't so great. I know there's one for KDE, but I don't run Linux as a workstation.

Re:So where's the SVG authoring apps?

[JKR]

Have you tried Adobe Illustrator 10? What doesn't it do that you need?

Jon.

Re:So where's the SVG authoring apps?

[salesgeek]

You can throw Corel Draw 11 and CorelRave in there, too.

As time goes on, the web is becoming less of a hypertext document repository and more of an interactive page definition language document repository. SWF, SVF and all just make more so that way. One of the original ideas I like about the web is that I could control the look and feel of the pages I browse.

Re:So where's the SVG authoring apps?

[Anonymous Coward]

Try SodiPodi.

Re:So where's the SVG authoring apps?

[wombatmobile]

SVGmaker creates static SVG from any Windows app. You just click File/Print in your app.

Re:So where's the SVG authoring apps?

[British]

I want native support for SVG, encompassing all the features(animation, etc) the SVG standard supports. No exporting, or other weird implmentations of it.

Two words for Adobe , W3c and SVG

[Anonymous Coward]

You lost.

An active forum for SVG developers

[Hibernator]

One of the most active forums for SVG developers is the SVG Developers Yahoo group.

More Goodies

[crisco]

Convert Flash to SVG

Convert various stuff to SVG

Flash vs SVG is more complicated

[Monkeyman334]

As someone who is a regular on SVG lists for the past 7 months or so (not very long), I have already come across SVG book authors, W3C members, and Macromedia employees, and good ol' developers all having the very same debate that know the technology much better. And, surprise(!), no side has given up and said "Oh, you're right, lets start developing only with X." If you checked a 2 page SVG vs Flash demo and reposted some generic "SVG doesn't have as many authoring tools", although valid, it's a lot deeper than that. SVG is XML. A real W3C standard. Anyone can make their own client, and hopefully get around cross platform issues like HTML browsers. Which shouldn't be too bad, an SVG plugin is less of a commitment than your whole browser, and bad XML is just that, hopefully no "close enough" rendering. You can create SVG with XSLT or through any server side scripts that can output plaintext.

Here are some great places for SVG demos:
Pinkjuice/svg
KevLinDev
Adobe SVG zone

And here are some SVG examples more "in the wild", which are usually mapping or graphing:
http://www.netency.com/netenmap/index.php?p=demos
http://www.oaklandtracks.com/noise/noise_managemen t_replay.html

Anyway, educate yourself and see where SVG can be applied. Good luck.

Re:Why can't they arleady do this?

[Micah]

You might be on to something there. From ldd:

mozilla/mozilla-bin:
[...]
libgtk-1.2.so.0 => /usr/lib/libgtk-1.2.so.0 (0x40246000)

GTK is certainly LGPL also!!!! What exactly is the problem here again?

Illustrator

[prockcore]

Adobe Illustrator can export SVG.

Re:For idiots like me -Good Books.

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually I would very much like to get into SVG. So what some *good* books on SVG, client and server side? I already have books on the other W3 technologies.

The key for me is XHTML embedding of SVG

[Anonymous Coward]

The big deal for me as a web designer is that SVG can be embedded directly in an XHTML document. The graphics eat less bandwidth than raster formats (like JPG and GIF) and can be mixed on-screen with the rest of the XHTML document. SWF files are subject to the usual limitations of anything implemented in a plugin.

Additionally, SVG animations tend to be smaller than SWF animations. It's like the difference between MPEG (which reduces redundant data from frame to frame) and using a separate JPEG image for each frame.

Re:The key for me is XHTML embedding of SVG

[Anonymous Coward]

>Additionally, SVG animations tend to be smaller than SWF animations.

actually, svg tends to be larger, since they use a much more verbose description format.

i suggest you learn more about the swf file format, since everything you said about it is wrong.

Re:SWF is not a proprietary format.-Yes.

[Anonymous Coward]

"proprietary
adj : protected by trademark or patent or copyright"

Proprietary doesn't always mean that it's closed to viewing. Just like PDF. But both are still from a legal standpoint "owned" by their respective companies. Patents and everything. So the answer is yes, SWF is a proprietary file format.

On a relatedly unrelated note..

[ChronoZ]

Anyone know how the beez::svg project is going? It would be really nice if this app took off one day...

dont forget karbon.

[7-Vodka]

Dude, don't forget karbon, the kde alternative. Looks very sweet to me. Everaldo even says he's using it now.

Karbon Pics

The good thing about SVG being XML

[bug-eyed monster]

Just wanted to make a couple of points about SVG being based on XML... This doesn't really provide much advantage now, but may provide lots in the future when browsers that fully support XML come out:

Imagine if a browser natively supported XHTML, SVG and XFORMS (my invention for a better XML version of HTML form elements). Then you could create a single document that contains well-defined text (XHTML), graphics (static or animated) (SVG) and interactive elements (XFORMS), and have them all interact with each other through DOM. Or you can put each part in a separate file and mix them together with <use> elements or whatever, and still have them interact with each other within the browser.

And the different elements need not be in their own separate boxes within your browser window, you could have an SVG graphics that embeds a chunk of XHTML in one corner, and XFORMS buttons in another corner and text fields somewhere else. Heck maybe even have some XHTML clipped within an SVG-defined oval.

And since it's all XML you can have the document interact more easily with the server through other well-defined protocols supporting XML, e.g. SOAP or XML-RPC.

Scalable... Duh?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why the 'Scalable' in SVG? Isn't it obvious in the 'vector' bit? Or, to put it in another way, are there any Non-scalable Vector Graphics? (NVG - you heard it here first!)

Karbon

[Tyreth]

I've just started using the cvs version of Karbon from the koffice project. I haven't done vector art before, but this seems pretty simple to use.

In this interview they talk with the authors of the Conectiva Crystal icons, and about using karbon to make them. They link to this screenshot.

Even though this is my first venture into vector art, I must say I like it - it looks like it could even make an artist out of me!

SVG is the future

[zero0w]

I think SVG is the technology for the future.
Already open source project such as sodipodi is using SVG to store vector graphic format.

Here are some more information about SVG and comparsion with SWF:

Mozilla SVG Project
Comparing .SWF (Shockwave Flash) and .SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) file format specifications
Flash and SVG

Re:SVG is the future

[Anonymous Coward]

fyi, some of those comparisons are way out of date (at least in regards to flash).

Re:For idiots like me -Good Books.

[wombatmobile]

• Designing SVG Web Graphics (amazon.com)
• Teach Yourself Svg in 24 Hours (site, amazon.com)
• SVG Essentials (amazon.com)
• SVG Unleashed (amazon.com)
• Svg Programming (amazon.com)
• SVG For Designers

Some online demos from SVG Unleashed

Piracy? More like delusion.

[Anonymous Coward]

Feh. This is the exact same complaint I have heard about HTML in years gone past by people who thought their HTML 'wizardry' (since there once was a time when not everyone knew how to write HTML) was such a valuable commodity that they couldn't bear the thought of other people actually using what they foist upon the world in any ways other than in their narrow, proscribed intended uses.

In other words, worrying about it is just going to make you seem like a selfish, ignorant jackass because your users are just going to go ahead and figure out how you did things anyway and copy it if they like it. If you're releasing it free to the world to use anyway, why do you care what people do with it? The whole point is for them to derive benefit from it, right? So what if their idea of 'benefit' doesn't match yours?

If you don't want people to see your flash animation, restrict access to it. Make them purchase it first. Package it inside an executable that encrypts it and make the user enter a valid key that just decompresses/decrypts it into memory before playing it. Whatever. Releasing something into the world for FREE (by, for example, publishing it on the web) and then expecting people to not mess with it is stupid and delusional. It just isn't going to happen like that.

If you really hate the idea that anyone might benefit from the work you release to the world in ways that you don't agree with or approve of, don't release it. It is just that simple. I see no need to be an elitist jerkoff about these things. That's the kind of thing high schoolers and skr1pt kidd13z do; not the kind of thing adults do. Grow up.

Re:The good thing about SVG being XML-XUL.

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually even better. With XUL plus all the rest you can have more that just a browser. Remember Microsoft's fear of Netscape's browser replacing the OS? Well we just maybe closer than before.

Copyright law is good enough

[yerricde]

what's to stop an author from viewing the SVG source and doing a cut-and-paste of the library into his own projects?

Title 17, United States Code.

The Berne Convention.

What else do you need?

Re:Copyright law is good enough

[vocaro]

What else do you need?

You're not really that naive, are you? I would think Napster alone shows that Title 17 reduces piracy but does not eliminate it. (Note that I said "unethical authors" in my post.)

Re:Copyright law is good enough

[yerricde]

I would think Napster alone shows that Title 17 reduces piracy but does not eliminate it.

HTML documents link to inline images, and there's nothing technological preventing users from copying the images. Nothing but copyright law.

Re:Copyright law is good enough

[vocaro]

That's absolutely right, but I think you missed the point of my original post. I was saying that SVG allows users to copy and modify those images in a way that was never before possible with GIF and JPG.

Every Technologies has +/-s. Just be aware of them

[AShocka]

I feel developers should always try to be as aware as possible about the technologies they use, without bias. Sometimes a client may request something be done in Flash, other clients may require that everything be as XML conformant as possible. Whatever the request, the developer needs to be aware of the pluses and minuses of each, and inform the client where need be. Flash has it's place, especially as Macromedia is putting in effort with MX to get it to address accessibility issues.

There is another possible advantage to SVG, being XML compliant, that I have not seen addressed here, and that is SVG media/documents can be formatted on the fly, using XSLT for various media. CSS addresses media types for (I know the support for all is not there yet, but it is getting there)

• screen
• print
• projection
• handheld
• tty
• tv
• aural
• braille
• emboss

I saw Dean Jackson's presentation at the OzeWAI 2002 Conference. From what I could see, he was using Mac OSX, and Python XSLT tools to produce his PowerPoint like SVG slides. In this format, one should be able to configure completely different behaviour, look and feels for any of the desired end media formats. Without a file format based in structured markup, this becomes much more difficult to address. For this purpose, this is far more flexible.

I do feel that as/if SVG is eventually built into browsers natively, there will need to be some user configurability to control the behaviour of the SVG, (and other media) in the browser. If there are animations the user needs to be able to easily turn them off (if they want too), or allow the user to turn them off by default. Users obviously want this type of control as each user is different, some may love animated web pages, others may not. SVG and user-agents need to be easily configurable and controllable. This should be pretty obvious given Mozilla's and Opera's preferences to allow the user to manage the DOM, and the market in Popup blockers for IE that manage the DOM and http refreshes and the like.

As a side note, I really do not think the W3C is trying to box in/out developers. I try to follow most of the discussion groups associated with Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI). I can see how it would be easy to form the mistaken opinion that this bunch of people basically want a web driven by Lynx (or some really bland HTML). I ask those of you here that find the process of the W3C draconian, to just follow any of the active W3C discussion lists. I find a community of people that, for one have taught me a lot about how to work as a collaboration of people with different views and agendas, that are working with everyone to try and find a way to present the web in the most universal and open standards. There is often very healthy debate, and many people trying and working very hard not to limit the standards. The W3C is not the Web Police, it's just a standards body trying to build an equitable, accessible web (Maybe I'm really naive).

Admittedly they do not do such a good job of marketing themselves and educating developers, but it is a democratic process, if you really don't like something and feel you have better solutions, or can improve, or help, join a working group and help improve the web.

If you do follow a discussion list for a few months, and do not find what I stated, well.. you can email me a tell me what a flamin idiot I am (you may not be far wrong).

Re:Mozilla Support, or Nothing to see here (yet)

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm using the Phoenix 0.5 browser (based on Moz) under Linux, and was thinking this might be The Answer to lengthy image downloads (if SVG vectorizes graphics better than Flash), but page downloads using the SVG plugin don't seem any faster. If developers aren't going to be careful to optimize, it's going to be more trouble than it's worth to have this as a new standard.

BTW, the adobe plugin is installable for phoenix under Linux, and does work sometimes, but I'm not going to say how. It works with the .svg demo file provided by adobe, and that's about it. Ooooh, ahhhh, a picture with scrolling text...

For anything else, the adobe plugin, at least, should be considered to be experimental only. It is too unstable and may crash, taking your browser with it. This is especially annoying if you have several pages in tabs at the time. So, forget it. For now it's just a waste of time.

Re:The good thing about SVG being XML

[p3d0]

Heck maybe even have some XHTML clipped within an SVG-defined oval.

Wow, that is the coolest thing I have read so far today.

Re:Why can't they arleady do this?

[axxackall]

I think it's more about politics than real license issue.

Mozilla team rejects libart (LGPL) and at the same time includes GTK (also LGPL). Strange, isn't it? But it doesn't look strange if you'll try to read some discussions in their bugzilla, like this one, where they buried out XFORMS b/c Why not just do it all in html and keep extending html. Basically, "we don't need any new standards, we need just some bugs to be fixed".

Look at other Mozilla projects having been promising and now dead. Look at their Roadmap - only version numbers, no info about any planned features (compare it with, for example PostgreSQL TODO list).

Gecko is (or was?) the most promising GUI technology I see today. It allows much more than HTML browsing - it allows to build real applications on the web. And several non-browser projects have been developed (i.e. mail). But tell me the name of any Gecko project newborn in last 6 months? Or old one riched its v1.0 quality in last 12 months? Did I miss something or nobody cares about Gecko anymore?

I think that for a long term Mozilla as project is slowing down and it may eventually die. At least with its current development team.

Look to those who use 'Photoshop' as a verb

[yerricde]

and modify those images in a way that was never before possible with GIF and JPG.

You've probably never seen a well-done cut-and-paste job. Start at All Your Base Are Belong To Us. Then look at Something Awful's Photoshop Phriday. Then tell me whether or not modifying a photographic image in a convincing manner is "possible with ... JPG".

Re:Look to those who use 'Photoshop' as a verb

[vocaro]

Please read my posts again. Note that I say easily possible. I realize that GIF and JPG rasterized images can be fabricated and modified, but that takes a fair amount of time and effort. The difference with SVG is that it's a vector format, which makes the "photoshopping" you mentioned much easier and quicker. That's because it breaks down the image into separate components and layers. Each layer can be modified or deleted without touching any other part of the image. It's like having the original PSD file with all the layers separated and then doing a photoshop on that - a much simpler task.

Of course if it has to actually work...

[GCP]

...and you need to deliver professional-quality on a real business kind of deadline, then you should use Flash.

Otherwise, if you're trying to do something in-house, where you control your own customers' client setup and they have to take whatever features you give them, and you don't have any pressing deadlines to meet so you can use immature tools or just a raw text editor to build your multimedia presentation, then SMIL/SVG might be a good way to make a statement they'll never forget: that political correctness is more important to you than end-user benefits.

Re:Every Technologies has +/-s. Just be aware of t

[benjfowler]

I saw Dean Jackson's presentation at the OzeWAI 2002 Conference [ozewai.org]. From what I could see, he was using Mac OSX, and Python XSLT tools to produce his PowerPoint like SVG slides. In this format, one should be able to configure completely different behaviour, look and feels for any of the desired end media formats. Without a file format based in structured markup, this becomes much more difficult to address. For this purpose, this is far more flexible.

A tool that does this, and lots more is JackSVG. It takes in an XML file and gives you a self-contained SVG presentation. It's cool - check it out.

Flash MX does search engines?

[artemis67]

Not from what I can tell. The page you linked to says nothing about SE's, and a search on Google shows that Flash developers also say "no".

SVG Fonts

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm a browser developer. One point I haven't seen others make is that SVG can automatically send platform-independent fonts whenever a client doesn't have a desired font installed. Good SVG-enhansed web browsers will cache SVG fonts to make them available to HTML/CSS code just as if they were system fonts. Although SWF also has an internal font system, HTML/CSS can't access it. IMHO, SVG fonts will be so easy to implement and use that they will become the defacto web font solution in the near future, even if SWF remains the defacto format for webtoons.