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Major Step Forward For SVG in the Desktop
Ur@eus writes "SVG the w3c format for Scalable Vector Graphics is seen as many as the future of desktop icons as it allows for scaling icons etc. without loss of quality. Dominic Lachowicz has been working hard on fixing bugs in librsvg over the last few days. The result is that librsvg now renders all available SVG icons perfectly.
Not only do it render them, but it renders them faster than libpng renders the same images in png format.
Together with the gdkpixbuf plugin librsvg offer it means GNOME 2.2 will be able to use SVG images not only for icons or desktop backgrounds, but also for the GUI widgets themselves and the graphics of the window manager.
Dom's announcement can be found on the librsvg mailinglist. The librsvg site also offer a GNOME 2.2 metatheme using mostly SVG icons including a nice screenshot."
Now, what is the problem with icons today??? They're ICONS. It's not like they're actual programs that matter! They're ICONS! C'mon!
This will pave the way for bigger and better OSX clones! Honestly, do we really need SVG icons on the desktop ? All i do is click my icons, i don't need them to enlarge to 200% when I mouse over them or shrink to nothing when I click them. I understand the need for eye candy, which is cool, but SVG icons aren't on the top of my list. Eye candy ? www.sh0t.com/gnome.jpg Anyhow, it's an advancement nonetheless
IF SVG supports raster (pixelbased) graphics, together with the vector graphics (as textures or something), this could be really useful. An ultimate graphics format, the holy grail...
As for not being needed on the desktop. Optimizations are *always* needed and useful. Also, this can finally mean truly resolution independent graphics. Simply know the dpi of your screen and all will always be the same size, independent of grannys old 640x480 and mine 1280x1024...
Great work librsvg team!!! I look forward to the day when there is no more Flash because SVG is so well supported. SVG: XML based, open standard, w3c backed, blah, blah. I love it! SVG is the ISH!
Why not? The scalable aspect means you would only have to supply one icon file for different resolutions. You could have applications where the proportions where exactly the same regardless of if the resolution was 800x600 or 1280x1024.
What about replacing flash animations in web sites with something really standard?
Soon you'll be able to have a desktop full of icons that are whatever low-polygon-count shape you want! I'm talking triangles, squares, trapezoids, you name it... aww yeah.
In Soviet Rush, today's Tom Sawyer gets high on you.
Even more so, using XML and SVG, it would be very easy to create additional icons without a lot of programming behind it. You may need to a SAX reader to take the stateful information into some form, but after that, it's just XSLT transformations into SVG, and voila, you have an easy way to make cool meters/icons.
"Pinky, you've left the lens cap of your mind on again." - P&TB
"I can see my house from here!" - ST:
This sounds like complexity is getting more and more. What about the processor needs required to expand things like this?
I don't see that it makes much sense. after all 16x16 or 32x33 icons have been around fr a long time. they're even-byte things and easy to handle. and they're quick
isn''t a desktop all about making a useful user experience? if I wanted gigantic icons I'd have gigantic icons, and I don't. It seems like extra complexity just for a coding exercise.
perhaps it has some other uses though
It would still be an improvement though.
My UID is prime!
Yupp, that's a problem. But if only small parts were textured (i.e. the parts that require it), you could use a higher resolution and still save space and performance.
gdkpixbuf
That looks like someone headbutted the keyboard...
However the entire quartz graphics subsystem supports all sorts of vector based operations and translations. Its a lot of fun to play with. Look at all of the shrunken window effects.
-- Oh Well
Those icons look really nice. But Mac OS X has already (at least partly) vector icons smoothly scalable from 16x16 to 128x128. They consists of 4 stages (16x16, 32x32, 48x48 and 128x128), and they work well in those ranges. I suppose it's theoretically possible to use even bigger icons in OS X.
I demand the Cone of Silence!
OS X just has very large bitmap icons. 256x256 if you recall. I wonder what the processing difference really is between making a vector icon and between moving just a bitmap around and then hardware accelation?
I don't know about Mac OS X, but IRIX have had vector-icons for many years.
Every time they demonstrate SVG-icons they do it by showing enormous icons that take up half of the screen real-estate. Guess what? I don't want my icons to be huge! I want them to be small and tidy. Apart for visually-impaired (read: half-blind), why do we need SVG-icons? Why would we want humungous icons cluttering our desktops?
Lesbian Nazi Hookers Abducted by UFOs and Forced Into Weight Loss Programs - -all next week on Town Talk.
KDE has rendered SVG based icons since its 3.0 or 3.1 betas; this is nothing too new.
Even the Politburo concurs with Process of Elimination http://process-of-elimination.net
Jeeeze, just reading a few of the first posts on here you'd think that SVG icons were the end of the world. Nothing could be farther from the truth...
One of the big reasons I like OSX (and I do not own a Mac, FYI) are the scalable vector icons. We've had vector based fonts for quite some time and you'd be hard pressed to find anybody out there who would rally against the scourge of vector fonts. For crying out loud... I believe it's KDE that has font anti-aliasing. I am sure we all have seen WindowsXP's "clear type" font smoothing. Anti-aliased fonts work pretty damn well and look absolutely super!
Having the same capability with something as lowly as desktop icon is amazing! The next logical step is UI widgets and other elements of the desktop.
As more and more LCD and other high-quality displays become the norm (many laptops feature 1400x1050 or 1600x1200 displays these days), not only are scalable fonts and UI widgets neccessary, there is an inherent human aspect to having a computer interface with the same perceived clarity of the real world.
I think this is a fantastic implementation of vector graphics. I only hope that we can soon have entire UI's based around scalable graphics as well.
Right after OSX came out, I remember downloading a GTK and Gnome theme for my Linux box that copied the look, if not feel, of OSX. If I recall correctly, that theme was yanked by Apple's lawyers.
Since then I've started running a OSX box as well, and have to admit that I like the look.
Now I wonder -- would it be copyright infringement to write a script that extracted all of the SVG icons from a MacOSX box, copy them to a GTK theme directory, and run them on Linux? Thus the distributed theme itself wouldn't have any of the Apple look -- it would simply have the skeleton. The actual artwork would be copied by the end user in the privacy of their own home or office directly off a OSX box.
The second possibility for this is to be able to run, with almost the exact same look, GTK/Gnome apps on directly on OSX (Apple's release of X11 really is amazingly well done, btw). The X11 integration still wouldn't be perfect of course (apps still have a hard time mimizing to the Dock), but it would be a visual improvement. Or even integrate the ability to search a file's resources to get the SVG icon and display it in Nautilus by default.
In any case, librsvg sounds very promising. I'm impressed.
XML is a great thing. It could lead to the end of diferences in the look between toolkis and desktops. Most people complain about choise when desktops are made to look the same way, but acctually, this is choise. Today you can't make a gnome app use the file open dialog from kde. If QT-Designet can load glade files, why trolltech and gtk team work on a kind of wrapper for the call of signals, so if the programer want, he choose to load a XML file that contains the visual choosing what widget will take it? This would be not mandatory of couse, if people don't want, just don't use this, and keep working qt and gtk apps as now. But it would be very cool if I could load gimp saying to it: use qt instead of gtk today, thanks. :)
OS X does not support SVG in any way as is. Earlier on in the development of OS X SVG was supposed to be a core component of Quartz the way PDF is today. It can be assumed that timing issues were the reason for this change of plan.
Regarding icons, OS X uses PNG for icons. The way the Dock use them is that you have to provide your Application with a special .icns file that contain your icon in three (four? - can't remember) different formats from 16x16 and 128x128, then OS X computes the sizes in between. So OS X icons are scalable in that way, but it still uses a raster format.
-- junior
This is excellent news. After getting a new monitor that does 1600x1200, I found those tiny icons a bit hard to click at times. But now, I can run whatever resolution I want, and the icons will just look better & better.
:D
Heck, now the word "resolution" will start to have meaning! Instead of getting more small icons on your screen when going from 800x600 --> 1600x1200, you could get more detailed ones. And if it renders faster than PNG images, then we can have both great looks & high speed. Way to go!
I really think that scaleable icons are gonna be THE killer application of tomorrows operating systems.
Seriously, why not go all the way and question the whole concept of icons?
They could be allowed more degrees of freedom in their representation of a complex data object. Consider a 3D spinning folder icon, which somehow gives you an idea of how much data/what type of data is contained in the folder.
Now THAT would be neat.
Wow, lets hope they solve the mass storage problem sometime soon so we can store 4 or 5 copies of each icon.
So can we expect similar native SVG support from our favorite gratis and libre browsers (Mozilla, Opera, et al) soon? I think it's only been available via a plugin before.
Nice to see progress being made in this direction...
For thos who do not understand the value of making Svg work on the desktop, it's because you never worked with SVG before.
I've worked all summer long on a job where i had to make a (sacled down and very acurate) map available via web... and it had to be interactively linked to a database...
Now with fixed image this could have been a real pain, but once the map had been transfered from autocad, it was a simple matter: the text in tha map was clickable!
(well, i did have to write a script to build the Svg from a DXF file and it really needs to be cleaned before i post it)
The biggest problem i had to face was the fact that not a single svg viewer passed the W3c Test. The best one i had at the time (The Adobe SVG viewer) was not capable of anchor viewport (ie, using wahtever.svg#viewportdef to automagicaly load the viewport 'viewportdef')
I just wish the format could be more popular... it could the next flash...
I live in Soviet Canuckistan you insensitive clod!
makes me wonder why is libpng so slow?
Were the svg icons compressed (gzip)?
But that's the point, you don't get 4 or 5 icons. If you're lucky you'ill get one "Small" and one "Large" icon.
Plus inside applications you tend to only get one size of icon regardless of screen resolution.
The thing about scaleability of vector graphics (including SVG) is that the scaling works great if your are making the graphic bigger. However, if you want to make the graphic smaller you could have trouble. The problem is when you start to get to a small size the stroke thickness of the vectors cease to scale at some point thus distorting the intent of the graphic artist who designed it. For example, say you had a square with a black line that was 20px x 20px and the stroke of the line was 1 pt. If you cut the size in half to 10px the stroke should scale to .5pt (roughly half a pixel). So the problem becomes, how do you render half a pixel? You anti-alias it that's how. Unfortunately this would lead to 'blurry' looking little icons and mine eyes are sore as it is! ;)
I'm not saying that SVG is bad just that the scalability is not never ending and for small icons this may not be a good choice. It is also not likey SVG could allow you to 'design one l33t icon for all resolutions!' because of these issues.
It is not only what you need on the desktop but also what people want. On a similar note, who *needs* flash on a webpage, or even GUI interfaces?
Personally I wouldn't mind seeing a truly open specification as the standard for scalable vector graphics, and this seems to be *the* candidate for it. From the w3c webpage on SVG:
SVG is a language for describing two-dimensional graphics in XML. SVG allows for three types of graphic objects: vector graphic shapes (e.g., paths consisting of straight lines and curves), images and text. Graphical objects can be grouped, styled, transformed and composited into previously rendered objects. Text can be in any XML namespace suitable to the appplication, which enhances searchability and accessibility of the SVG graphics. The feature set includes nested transformations, clipping paths, alpha masks, filter effects, template objects and extensibility.
SVG drawings can be dynamic and interactive. The Document Object Model (DOM) for SVG, which includes the full XML DOM, allows for straightforward and efficient vector graphics animation via scripting. A rich set of event handlers such as onmouseover and onclick can be assigned to any SVG graphical object. Because of its compatibility and leveraging of other Web standards, features like scripting can be done on SVG elements and other XML elements from different namespaces simultaneously within the same Web page.
Visit http://ringbreak.dnd.utwente.nl/~mrjb/growingbettersoftware to download your free copy of the book
If SVG reduced processor usage, then it is needed for the desktop. Why? In order to free up cycles for actual tools. I want all the eyecandy of E, but I also want XMMS and MPlayer to run smoothly, Mozilla to render fast, GIMP to run without bogging down, etc. If using SVG to draw the screen does the job, then the desktop needs it.
If I make an SVG icon with 2 billion vectors, will that still be rendered faster than a .png icon?
.png also.
If it still is faster it means that they are drawing it once to a bitmap buffer that they use from then on, but that can be used for
I say, mod the article itself as clueless.
The Internet is full. Go Away!!!
...to have a really good SVG editing tool. GIMP 1.3.1 shows that some GNOME developers have put some serious thought into Bezier editing tools, but nothing that has been released as a standalone vector editing app. killustrator, sodipodi and similar apps just aren't ready for prime time. If you're willing to spend the time to use it, the GIMP is really about as powerful as photoshop. Unfortunately, there is nothing in the open source world which is anywhere near as close to Adobe Illustrator functionatlity.
Worth noting that NeXT had display Postscript robustly implemented and SGI's window manager also had scalable fonts, but neither of these OS or GUIs are around today. If there's a lesson to be learned here, it is that the UI isn't significantly improved by scalable vector graphics. SVG is an improvement but not one which will make any competitive difference. Fortunately or unfortunately, the 25 year history of user interface points us in a different direction.
http://tinyurl.com/4ny52
And an incorrect one at that. Nautilus has supported SVG since GNOME 1.4, and KDE 3.1 STILL does not support SVG. It is however on the plan for KDE 3.2. Now GNOME will support SVG in all areas of the desktop.
Moderators:
"<INSERT FAVOURITE DESKTOP SYSTEM> has supported this for years", is always a pure troll. When it is also totally incorrect it certainly does not warrant a +1 interesting.
How does librsvg compare to ksvg? Which is faster, more compliant, more powerful etc?
GNOME's been doing SVG icons for a long time -- this is an evolutionary improvement. This is another area in which it took quite a while for KDE to catch up, not GNOME.
I wonder if KDE is using libsrvg to render the icons, as opposed to some Qt stuff. If so, both environments will immediately benefit.
May we never see th
Mozilla has a native SVG project that's been around for awhile.
I've always thought this would be the coolest thing ever: native SVG in a browser. I've thought of all sorts of great applications of this idea--I do mostly statistical analysis and to be able to put all the output, graphics and everything, into one file in a open, standard format that's read by a browser sounds wonderful.
The problem as I understand it is that the SVG library Mozilla currently uses has a license that's incompatible with the Mozilla license. Mozilla native SVG is available in a separate download and has some functionality, but not anywhere near all of it. I've always thought it seemed a bit strange that someone couldn't find a Mozilla-capable SVG library, or that it would be that difficult to build one (I would help, but I just don't have anywhere near the expertise necessary).
So, this stuff about Mozilla native SVG may seem offtopic, but it's really not, in a way: does anyone know if the library used for the SVG icons has any utility for Mozilla SVG or other open source browser-native SVG projects?
It's not clear to me how this could result in a faster desktop, except that it should cause less swapping, and that modern CPUs have power in excess (but it could be the same for the RAM, except that desktop machines are often sold by default with inadeguate RAM supply, mostly for commercial reasons).
The real place where vector-based graphic would be useful is the Internet. Less memory would mean less bandwidth required to transmit the image, and the greather CPU usage shouldn't be noticed, given that when you are surfing you don't care if the other activities on your PC (if any) are a bit slower.
But I wonder if SVG would be much better than image compression in that sense.
Ciao
----
FB
I clicked on the screenshot they have on the website and, to me anyway, it looks terrible. The fonts are bad, and even the graphics need alot of work.
I suggest you try out Sodipodi while it would be crazy to claim that it can do everything Illustrator can it is getting nice and usefull.
Yeah, I know, absolutely *nothing* can beat a blue "e" in intuitivity. I mean everybody just knows that "e" means "Web Browser", it's just the logical thing. Or a stylish "W" is a Word processor, what else can it be.
Sometimes I really start to think that the rumours about Microsoft paing people to post on various forum sites are true. Either that or some recently introduced and very common food preservative causes brain cancer or senility - or both.
Maybe Mozilla can use this renderer instead. It would be cool that SVG would be more dominant than flash when it comes to vector images.
Just a thought anyway.
Take-off every
run your desktop at 2048x1536 and you'll get a harsh lesson in how poor the computing world deals with different resolutions.
.. Text Zoom] on mozilla & [View ... Text Size] on I.E.
If it wasn't for Mozilla's ability to have a minimum point size for fonts 75% of websites are too small to read (including my own).
Making a website that renders properly at all sorts of font sizes is a challenge.
A challenge made worse by I.E. & Mozilla's disagreement on what to change when you change the browser's font size. [View
I.e. doesn't change any font specified in pt, px em or en whereas moz changes soe of them but not others.
frikking n'mare
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
Hey, I only run Linux at home,
but there is a growing trend to even less understandable, far to pretty icons. I havn't seen what XP looks like, don't really care either.
This is a nice tactile desktop though.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
You mean the one that some GNOME 1 distros used, where clicking on a folder cleared the filename, a la Navigator?
GNOME 2's already eliminated that.
May we never see th
Things get funny when you start to use small Icons. Just look at the way fonts render with freetype or AA switched on. There just SVG's with a different name.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
what? with Microslop gearing up to purchase Macromedia?
standard = whatever Bill Gates says
amen
That was classic intercourse!
Funny how you mention half-blind.
SVG is one of the few 'imaging technologies' that has very good support for accessibility. Each drawn object can have a title and a description, so whereas you see a "stuffed garbage can", the braille user-agent would output the desc text: "Garbage Can containing more than 1 MB of trash".
SVG could also be used for an org charts, and instead of having a long 'alt' tag would probably be out of sync with the 'gif', the blind user would be able to read the contents of each box, and depending on how the SVG is structured (with groups and defs), even get an idea of how the boxes are related.
Also, SVG supports CSS, so you can have different stylesheets for different media (screen, printer, cell-phone-screen, and even braille and audio).
As far as an imaging technology goes, since it's just another XML format, you can grab an XML document (say in the Weather Observation Markup Format) and use XSLT to output a nice SVG graphic showing the weather. (In fact, that's one of the example used in O'Reilly's SVG Essentials).
I've just started using SVG (with Python) as a way to transform map data from the US Govt and make nice little SVG maps for my browser (kind of like a hand-rolled Mapquest).
Programmers familiar with XML will be able to make some neat (albeit very ugly) stuff. Designers who know the fancier drawing tools will be able to make some pretty nice-looking stuff. Put 'em together and you can have some nice smart graphics. Will it replace flash? Who knows.
My father is a blogger.
I can't believe people here have so little imagination. It's almost like they are posting just to get modded up for having a 'radical' opinion. I mean, come on, what's the problem with SVG? It's not like the time spent coding on it is going to mean KDE3.2 will be delayed a month, or that Gnome will have more bugs. This is just one of the many enhancements that make Linux, and software in general, nicer. We should be talking about the fun things we can do with SVG, or the improvements that could be made, or any encouraging notes on it. Not about whether it has a point at all.
Let me illustrate some points for the creatively challenged:
So, onto something more positive: what's the state of SVG in KDE? I really enjoyed it in Gnome 2 for the time I used it, but it was a bit slower when they got large. These speed improvements are certainly good news.
contain your icon in three (four? - can't remember) different formats
Four: 16x16, 32x32, 48x48, and 128x128.
Deformable matches are used in advanced medical applications between 3d volumetric images: CT, MRI, PET, etc.
-- Imperial units must die --
I seem to be alone here as the only person who actually thinks this is a fantastic idea...
:)
The whole point about SVG is that they will render nicely whatever the screen size... This isn't only relevant for big screens. This means that my iPAQ's tiny little 320x240 screen won't have to be eaten up by huge bitmap icons.
The SVG stuff should tie in beautifully with the sub-pixel rendering in X.
Congratulations to the author(s) for their great work..
Looks like linux just gained yet another feature that windows is lacking.
Well Done
If this lib as fast as it claims (at rendering though I doubt parsing), then why not? Windows and other elements in the display would break-down into SVG commands that would be rendered as required. Perhaps it would prove a very efficient way of presenting a remote desktop too rather than sending down bitmaps like VNC does at present.
It might be wise to use the Windows/OS/2 icon format for the desktop icons. It allows multiple images in one file and should also be fast to load (because png seems to be too slow/unoptimized).
Thing is, frequently you want a loss of quality when you scale an icon. Who cares about all the pretty brown crinkles in the Gnome foot icon when it's at 12 x 12? They won't read like crinkles, they'll read like a muddy mess. A simple outline is probably best at that size.
Now, a format that defines a priority heirarchy among the vectors on the image, and a scaling factor at which size various low priorities of vectors are not rendered... That might be very, very useful for icons.
I've often wondered why we dont see any SVG font offerings, since fonts are even part of the SVG spec I believe. Using SVG fonts would remove the issue of patents surrounding TTF (which is basically the standard font format). Now Xft/Xft2 could still support TTF fonts and such, but they could also load SVG fonts. All the OSS/FS community would need, is someone to make the fonts. :)
I'm surprised no one has mentioned a key benefit of SVG desktops: session migration.
Ever notice how primitive systems like WinXX have some serious layout problems with a network login user moving from their "usual" 1280x1024 desktop to a temporary workstation that is set for 800x600? The icons get repositioned to be visible, destroying any custom layout the user had -- and that is assuming they were all in the upper/left of the screen. Heaven forbid the user had bothered with placing any of them on the right hand edge of their screen!
Deploying a "thin client" desktop is even worse, as you need to be able to scale the virtual desktop to fit the physical screen being used at the time. As PCs become more innocuous (think payphones), it will be natural for people to expect to have an identical session no matter what they are using to link with their home server session.
Sure we're still 5-10 years from the point where those facilities are "needed", but without a solid foundation in place we can't even think about deploying those kind of systems efficiently.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
"librsvg"
Say that twice fast.
i'm amazed that i survived - an airbag saved my life.
According to http://www.w3.org/2001/07/SVG10-IPR-statements.htm l
and
http://www.w3.org/Graphics/SVG/Disclosures,
this appears to have been resolved to permit
royalty-free use.
If this is true, that's a real victory for the new W3C policy (and for the world in general). Thanks to all. Please let me know if I'm misinterpreting something.
- David A. Wheeler (see my Secure Programming HOWTO)
LGPL is compatible with both GPL and MPL software, you are just required to leave the LGPL code in a shared library or DLL rather than embedding it in the application.
The only people who'd want to move it over to MPL would be those who want to embrace and extend from a corporate perspective. SVG is simple and small enough that the few surviving corporates who need to implement such a library can do so with relatively few resources if they aren't willing to live with the LGPL requirements.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
Maybe try to read your parent comment? I quote:
killustrator, sodipodi and similar apps just aren't ready for prime time
This is cool and all, but is anyone else shuddering at the idea of a Gnome build with even more library dependencies than it has now? Screw getting a cup of coffee while Gnome builds, it's more like grow your own beans, roast them, age them, grind them...
Hmm.. What do people use to develop the SVG icons? I can think of a few obvious anwsers from powerful graphics packages, but I though they were all stuck in win32 land. I'd like to know of something for Linux.
For a program I'm writing, I use Ghostscript to render some postscript in one of my windows, but I wouldn't dream of using it to render my GUI widgets. :-)
The ocean parts and the meteors come down
Laid out in amber, baby.
Although, being a windows user i could only view it using the Adobe SVG Viewer which only works in IE, any of you have an idea of how to make it work under opera7 drop me a line:)
Remember how the NeXT boxes had postscript displays? Whatever needed to be drawn on the screen was expressed as postscript, and the display was a postscript renderer. It worked beautifully.
SVG is much more powerful (for desktop things, not necessarily for printing/typesetting things) than postscript. I think this is an excellent step.
Whence? Hence. Whither? Thither.
The SVG spec includes rasters. Check these samples SVG images which use bitmaps:
Magnifying glass example (drag the circles around)
Pixelization example
Gnome is for the desktop, not for your 3d rendering workstation,
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
Wait... I'm considering it... considering.... aaaaand... I hate it!
3D interfaces are for 3D displays with 3D pointing devices, dude. Furthermore, I don't want things spinning on my desktop. It already tells me how much/what kind of data it is (in OS X, anyways... its a option to show a label below the filename).
If Jesus wants me it knows where to find me.
I completely agree , I can't wait to install this , unfortunately I think I might have to wait until KDE
decides to support this in a release version
On a plus side they say in Gnome it's faster using SVG instead of the PNG's that they were using !!!
Very impressive , better grafix , and faster to boot
Yup. The Crystal SVG by Everaldo, and the Sphere by Vadim are KDE icon themes.
You would think with everyones rant that this was really new technology. Vector image formats are not new.
In fact there is an age old debate, of bitmap (pixel-based) and vector. Pixel based has it's drawbacks of not being scalable, and being bigger in file size. Vector, on the otherhand is scaleable and smaller in file size.
We should, however, remember the big tradeoff for vector, and that is what is gained in scalable quality is lost in rendering processor time. I could imagine some extremely complex icons being created really grinding GNOME on the rendering. Additionally, add XML as the native format, while useful in many applications, processing/parsing XML is not the ideal...
I'll be impressed when I see it and run it on my old beater box that I currently can run GNOME on...
Although, I guess if it really " renders them faster than libpng renders the same images in png format." maybe it'll be the holy gail afterall.
Apple is using an optimized PDF rendering engine in OS X, not display PostScript, which had to be licensed from Adobe.
http://tinyurl.com/4ny52
I hav not seen a linux version of the Adobe plugin. Linux isn't mentioned in that link. Or am I missing something.
That many acronyms in one sentence is probably bad for you...
Now the world has gone to bed, Darkness won't engulf my head, I can see by infra-red, How I hate the night.
Yes, I've tried sodipodi, and it still lacks most of the useful features of Illustrator, including font-file format editing, passably intuitive object handling, drag and drop integration with other GNOME apps, robust gradient support, integration with any animation tool, and cmyk colorspace support. The purpose of indicating these limitations isn't to complain in any way, but hopefully to make clear the kinds of features needed before such a project can be publicly announced as a useful vector graphics tool. Linux has replaced corporate dependence on Windows, and hopefully some day GIMP and killustrator/sodipodi will replace dependence on Adobe's insanely pricey graphics authoring and editing tools.
http://tinyurl.com/4ny52
As far as I know early stages. Check out the KSVG project, they are about to release ksvg 0.1.
I read this claim again and again, and it still doesn't sit well with me. I worked on a vector-based rendering engine for awhile (in fact, the fastest vector-based rendering engine [begins with an f, ends with a lash]), and there are certain limitations that cannot be overcome.
When it ultimately gets down to it, a PNG file is a compressed bitmap. There is a fixed cost to rendering it, which can be expressed as an amortization of the dimensions of the image. Its just like fill-rate on a 3-D card.
When rendering any vector format, there are many dependencies. Is AA enabled? Which AA algorithm was used? Are they using a scanline renderer, or actually rasterizing each vector regardless of its impact?
The same reason which allows SVG to be faster than PNG rendering is the same reason that other cases will be radically slower: rendering each vector disregards the size of the image being rendered. How can this make it slower? Imagine an image filled dozens or hundreds of times with the same vectors that fill the image completely. Suddenly, we're not having to fill a rectangle, we're having to fill it multiple times in comparison to the png drawing in the same space. And the problem gets worse the larger the destination size.
Using a scanline renderer for vector based graphics has a much better cost comparison to png format, but it will always be slower as ultimately bitmaps can be embedded within vector formats.
As a simpler analogy; the vector graphics are to the transformation pipeline or a graphics card what bitmaps (and pngs) are to the rasterization on the video card. Transformation without rasterization is meaningless, and therefore always going to be slower.
I currently have no clever signature witicism to add here.
As both of our desktops are getting ready for SVG graphics, and many of the standard graphics elements, which are classically bitmapped, it would be a great opportunity for KDE and Gnome desktop developers to get their heads together, think what they want and need for getting SVG on the desktop, and work together on unifying the look and feel of their desktops, through commonly shared SVG icons, widgets, window styling, backgrounds, themes, ...
One little nit (though I agree with you, fundamentally), when you say "accurate" printing, you're making assumptions about what that means. If someone considers accurate to mean exactly what they see on the screen, then you should send that bit-for-bit to the printer with one exception: color correction, which you have to do do account for printer vs. monitor differences in color.
However, if you start re-rendering the screen in the DPI of the printer vs the screen, you will get a DIFFERENT image. That might be ok, or even desirable, but it's not quite "accurate".
These issues are important as we move UNIX-like OSes into the pure desktop arena. We'll have to tackle issues that are purely aesthetic and don't really have a 100% right answer.
Slashdoter, ....to help those that can not...or will not help themselves:
/ ...but thats what you have to do
. asp
r t.de/r ee.fr/english/
Here is more infromation about SVG
The main community of SVGers lives at:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/svg-developers
(have to login...I know it sucks
There is an SVG Wiki that has a lot of useful links:
http://www.protocol7.com/svg-wiki/default
There is a second ever SVG conference SVG Open 2003:
http://www.svgopen.org/
To read the paper from last years conference SVG Open 2002:
http://www.svgopen.org/index-2002.shtml
Some interesting sites at:
http://www.kevlindev.com/
http://www.mecxpe
http://www.svgnotebook.com
http://pilat.f
http://www.pinkjuice.com/svg/
remember we all learn by sharing what we know
man_behind_the_times
I can't believe no one's pointed out that IRIX has had scalable vector icons since for ever.
It's one of those things that's quite cool when you first of all play with it, but isn't really a "killer feature".
After all, desktop resolutions aren't going up in terms of dpi that quickly. 48x48 icons on Windows are more than sufficiently large at the moment. 64x64 and 128x128 support is in the wings, too.
I don't think monitor DPI gets larger faster than software is developed, therefore you'll never really need to "stay on top" of monitor resolution developments. It's just a natural progression.
Besides, at anything less than about 50x50, SVG icons aren't a very good idea compared to a hand-optimised bitmap - they're ugly.
Truetype fonts would look *awful* if they weren't full of information about how to grid-fit themselves at low res. That's why tahoma/verdana look so good at 8pt. on screen.
SVG doesn't have anywhere for this information about grid-fitting to go. Plus doing it in colour rather than B&W is a big issue too.
There have been countless vector graphics formats since the beginning of computer science, and presumably all of them have been scalable. What's different about this one that makes it better and/or will make it not die like the rest of them?
"Yeah, I know, absolutely *nothing* can beat a blue "e" in intuitivity. I mean everybody just knows that "e" means "Web Browser", it's just the logical thing. Or a stylish "W" is a Word processor, what else can it"
So, by your argument, a VW icon wouldn't mean car? I'd go into detail, but first I need to know if you understand the concept of what a logo is.
"Sometimes I really start to think that the rumours about Microsoft paing people to post on various forum sites are true."
Yeah, paying people to preach to a bunch of MS haters would be so fruitful. It couldn't possibly be that less bigoted people can see that MS did some stuff right. Here, I'll prove my point:
"Yeah, I know, absolutely *nothing* can beat a blue "e" in intuitivity."
What makes it intuitive is the words "Internet Explorer" right next to (or underneath) the icon. The nice thing about the blue 'e' is that it scales down to like 32 by 32 and is still readable.
If you think designing icons is easy, why don't you try making an 'internet' icon that's readable at 32 by 32.
"Derp de derp."
This will be a gread improvement for the visually impared as screen magnifiers will look MUCH better.
Yes, you're right (and I admit it even that I don't like XUL because I think it's too bloated, good idea, bad implementation IMHO). XUL is already a wrapper over gtk that works pretty well. Kudos to Mozilla team.
Bitmaps should be made a thing of the past as soon as possible and GUIs must deal with the screen as an array of virtual points instead of pixels. Microsoft Windows does it, but not completely and certainly not on the icons. The X-Window system does not do it though, and it is really annoying when a good icon layout is destroyed because of resolution change.
When it comes to GUIs, video resolution should be independent of the GUI resolution, allowing for on the fly zoom and video res change.
Not to mention that the GUI looks much greater!
And in the future, each icon can be fully 3d (and rendered by the video card) to give feedback about the status of the file/device: a spinning cd rom, a folder opening, a file being deleted, etc.
Flash is a standard you biased motherfucker. Why don't you check out this handy link before you go spouting your mouth off.
We wave the flag of freedom as we conquer and invade.
links to interesting various domains using svg; svg examples
Whoa! I got 2.8Megs of scalable icon for my word-document. If I zoomed it to fullscreen, I can read the document without opening the actual file! No more MS Word crashing, it's all svg now... :)
Well, I like the svg idea, especially the flash_out_the_window_in_a_flash part of it. But even more, there's x3d coming, and hey(!) - have we all forgotten about fractal graphics? Zoom that!
love slashdot. populate it. use it. abuse it. hate it. kill it. miss it. stop following links, they only kill servers.
XP Icons
Seems like microsoft only have two Icons.
Recycle Bin sounds like an emerge command on gentoo.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
I have some doubts about the state of the art today.
when an icon is drawed, say, for the gnome menu, it creates a pixmap.
Is that pixmap shared/memcopied for any other app/whatsoever that needs to render the same icon?
when we do it with svg, you could also save time if you only render the icon once.
How does gnome goes about it?
errera hunamum ets
You are wrong on two counts: 1. There is a full syncronization between animation and graphics in Adobe SVG Viewer. Adobe audio element works just like SMIL audio element with all synchronization stuff available for it. 2. There is already an agreement that it should be perfectly legal to embed SMIL audio element in and SVG document and it should work just the way Adobe audio element does now.
I see all the chatter about how you tradeoff CPU for RAM savings when using SVG, bitmaps are much better, XML parsing speed, etc.
You guys are missing the point. It gives a jumping off point for many new ideas. Why not a SVG-based window server? Let's get rid of X11 once and for all!! (asbestos underwear deployed) Would gzipped SVG be smaller in size than gzipped X11 when transmitted over the wire? Might make remote desktops as ubiquitous as the web browser is these days.
Also, use your 3D card to offload the process of drawing of a display to where it makes sense.
Isn't that what Quartz Extreme on the Mac is all about? I know only specific configurations are supported, but the idea is sound.
Display PDF and QE seem to be working for them quite nicely.
Just a thought.
--- If you hadn't stayed to read this
I used to fall into this trap from time to time myself. See, whenever somebody on Slashdot says "standard," they mean one of very specific thing: a specification entangled in draconian license terms that make commercial use impossible. No standard created and promoted by a company can be a "standard" in the Slashdot sense. So Flash is not a "standard" for the same reason that the QuickTime file format is not a "standard:" because, despite the fact that they are fully documented and readily available for any to use, both of those formats were developed by companies. And companies, of course, are inherently bad, according to Slashdot collectivist groupthink.
It's an easy mistake to make, misunderstanding the common usage of the word "standard" on Slashdot. The same problem arises with the word "open," and don't even get me started on the word "free."
I write in my journal
You know, in my experience an "inaccurate" SVG screenshot would would actually be better than the real thing.
- You have to accept license agreement to get it (and you should ask company lawer if you can accept it before you click "Yes" - it has some real implications, it is NOT simply "you should know that we hold copyright" type of things -read section 3 "Restrictions").
- The license effectively says that it is Macromedia implementation that is normative and the "spec" is informative.
- Where is patent policy?
- Can I participate in the future SWF format development?
Otherwise, yes, you can write your SWF player or save to a "Macromedia Flash (SWF)" format.One would hope it would pave the way to a better OS X Aqua environment.
The fact is, OS X is just a short step away from a resolution independent graphics engine. Quartz already renders and scales in a fundamentally resolution independent manner. Quartz Extreme uses the graphics cards to speed much of that - and those graphics cards were really designed for 3D scenes where elements constantly change resolution.
With some work, and some updating of the APIs, we could have a completely resolution independent OS X environment. Instead of selecting lower pseudo-resolutions on your monitor control panel , we could be draging a slider to resize the monitor resolution on the fly to anything smaller than the maximum supported resolution of the card. (Note: yes, even bigger than maximum supported resolution of the monitor). SVG would probably replace tiff for the most part, but scaled, higher resolution tiffs would probably do the job as well.
Frankly the APIs are the main problem - since nobody has ever done something like that before, the Cocoa and Carbon APIs and Interface Builder need to provide for more flexible ways to define positioning information and for rendering bitmapped graphics (allowing programs to choose whether to scale like the rest of the environment or constrain themselves to the native bitmap of the monitor).
---If you can't trust a nerd, who can you trust?
You may want to check out Fresco, which would allow exactly that. In particular, the Fresco vs. X page might be interesting to you.
You know where you are? You're in the $PATH, baby. You're gonna get executed!
Okay, I know what SVGs are. I know their purpose, their utility, etc. But I haven't actually worked with them and don't currently know anyone who does. My question is this: Are you limited to cartoonish-type images using SVG or are they a great deal more flexible than my little mind can comprehend?
SVG stands for Silicon Valley Group, dammit!
You see, I prefer to do things myself whenever possible, mainly because I'm an antisocial, and terminally mistrustful bastard.
You've just summed up the Slashdot mentality perfectly. Thank you.
I write in my journal
Ok I like the nice shiney icons but where can I find that background??
Smilee
it's not at "true" standard until there is more than one implimentation for the standard.
Is there?
-pyrrho
XUL a wrapper around GTK?
You know nothing. Please, try to hide your ignorance a little harder. How could XUL be a wrapper around GTK+ and run in Windows, OSX, OS/2 without GTK+?
XUL is a markup language which is just rendered as an HTML variant by the Gecko layout engine.
XUL bloated? XUL works reasonably fast. I don't know where did you take the idea of XUL being bloated.
When people talk about the ignorant crowd at Slashdot they are talking about you.
640k should be enough for anybody.
I believe SVG does allow embedding of raster images and fonts. Adobe Illustrator and Corel Draw (the new versions), allow export to SVG and some limited scripting facility as well.
Of course we are. I don't see why this seems to surprise you, or what there is to ridicule about it. We reinvent the wheel because the existing wheel vendors maintain a hands-off policy and don't let us improve existing wheels. Some people don't enjoy the wheelwright business, but we do, so we hack on those wheels we're allowed to hack on, which is generally the ones we've invented ourselves.
Not sufficiently. Fast graphics on OS X? Only if I have a certain type of computer from a certain vendor, purchased within a certain recent past. Good desktop environment? Very subjective - I prefer the minimalist approach myself and do most of my work in text mode anyway. Media tools? I don't see a deficiency in the Unix offerings, except in support for certain proprietary media formats like Sorensen Quicktime, which we have been told we aren't allowed to build.
Who is insisting on using tools that are poor imitations at best? And imitations of what? I picked a computing environment for a lot of criteria - not least of which is that I'm not boxed in to buying either hardware or software from any specific vendor, by the way - and I use whatever tools seem to fit my needs best, whether they be bought, downloaded or home-built.
Imitation is also not a bad thing. You mention Safari - is it not an imitation of the many web browsers that have come and gone since 1992? For that matter, is not all GUI-based software imitating the GUI-based software of the eighties that explored the bounds of the GUI paradigm and figured out how a raster-based system could be made as functional as the text-cell-based systems of its day? Innovation alongside imitation is powerful indeed. Innovation divorced from imitation, while sometimes interesting, is very rarely practical.
And back to vendor dependence: you seem to be content to sit at your computer and trust that Microsoft, Apple, Adobe and Macromedia will spoon-feed you what you need when you need it. I guess that's fine for you (and for that matter, for most computer users) but it's not enough for me.
"How can you claim that you are anti-crack, while still writing a window manager?" — Metacity README
We reinvent the wheel because the existing wheel vendors maintain a hands-off policy and don't let us improve existing wheels.
But that's kind of the point. You're making really crappy wheels, and then bragging about how revolutionary they are. The fact that your new triangular wheel improves on the old square wheel because it has one less bump is not something to be proud of when the rest of us are all rolling around on steel-belted whitewalls.
Who is insisting on using tools that are poor imitations at best? And imitations of what?
I am. Of the commercial products on which the Linux products were based or by which they were inspired.
I use whatever tools seem to fit my needs best
That's not really true, is it? Either Windows XP or OS X would fit your needs better than Linux. This is blindingly obvious. You use Linux for reasons other than pragmatism. Which is, of course, entirely fine, but don't argue that it's a rational choice.
You mention Safari - is it not an imitation of the many web browsers that have come and gone since 1992?
Nope. Features like the bookmark manager and the SnapBack function are entirely new. No imitation going on there.
And back to vendor dependence: you seem to be content to sit at your computer and trust that Microsoft, Apple, Adobe and Macromedia will spoon-feed you what you need when you need it.
Hee hee. Wrap it in whatever loaded language you like. The bottom line is that my computer works better than yours.
I write in my journal
You must be confusing me with someone else. I've never tried to maintain that what I write is better than anything else out there. At most I strive to build something that is better for specific purposes than any other free software out there. If it's also better than proprietary alternatives, great.
Really? How can this be? As far as I know, we have never met, so I find it hard to believe you have any idea what my needs are. How can it be blindingly obvious that either Windows XP or Mac OS X would fit my needs better than the system I'm typing on now?
I guess you're making the assumption that every computer user wants basically the same thing out of a computer. Apple and Microsoft both proceed on this assumption, and for one or two standard deviations of people, it works.
For a simple yet real-world example of where you are wrong: tell me, which of Windows XP or Mac OS X should I run on my Pentium 166 with its 64 MB of RAM? (Well, I did eventually upgrade to 128 MB, but still.)
How about features like a <Back> button, or an address bar, or pull-down menus, or hyperlinks that you activate by clicking on them? What about an animated graphic ("spinner") whose animation shows that a page has not completed loading? What about a config option for not loading images, or disabling Java? I have never used Safari, but I'm willing to bet that it has all of these thoroughly non-innovative features.
My point isn't that $BROWSER_OF_THE_MONTH has no new features. Most software has at least one unique feature. Even open-source software, which you seem to dismiss sight-unseen as completely reactive. (Oh, wait - Safari is open-source too. I guess you only think open-source software for Linux is non-innovative, then.) My point, and you snipped it, was that you really can't build software ex nihilo. If you write something that doesn't in the least resemble anything that has come before, it may be innovative, but it will most likely be useless as well.
No, the bottom line is that my computer works better than yours.
Oops, unprovable statement. And not only subjective, but even more elitist than I have come to expect from Mac users, if you'll excuse the ad hominem.
"How can you claim that you are anti-crack, while still writing a window manager?" — Metacity README
How can it be blindingly obvious that either Windows XP or Mac OS X would fit my needs better than the system I'm typing on now?
Because Windows XP and Mac OS X both do the job of running a personal computer better than Linux does. QED.
I guess you're making the assumption that every computer user wants basically the same thing out of a computer.
Yes, indeedy. Every computer user wants to fire up his computer, access peripherals, and run programs.
tell me, which of Windows XP or Mac OS X should I run on my Pentium 166 with its 64 MB of RAM?
XP. Mac OS X doesn't run on Pentiums.
How about features like a button, or an address bar, or pull-down menus, or hyperlinks that you activate by clicking on them?
Yes, Safari has those.
What about an animated graphic ("spinner") whose animation shows that a page has not completed loading?
Safari doesn't have that. It has a different sort of progress indicator, one you've never seen before. It's (gasp) innovative.
What about a config option for not loading images, or disabling Java?
By "config option," you mean "preference control," right? Remember, Safari is real software, not something you have to compile yourself in order to make work. Safari has a control for enabling Java, but no control for loading images.
I have never used Safari, but I'm willing to bet that it has all of these thoroughly non-innovative features.
Careful. Your ignorance is showing.
Oh, wait - Safari is open-source too.
There it goes again. Safari is not open-source.
Oops, unprovable statement.
No, it's not unproveable. Let's get into it. Name one thing your computer does better than mine. Let's see who wins.
I write in my journal
What makes you think I'm running a "personal computer"? It happens that the hardware I own is marketed as such, but I consider it a development workstation, file server, etc. I think the question of whether Windows XP or Mac OS X are "better" for certain functions depends on how you define these functions. You seem to lump every computer user into a single "personal computer" profile. If you allow this profile to be broad enough, sure it fits. But then, with a broad enough profile, you can't credibly claim that XP and OS X are the best of breed. You're treading a rather thin line of semantics here.
And neither does XP, with 64 MB of RAM. I'm sure it will boot up, but I expect the combination of slow CPU and (relatively) low memory will cause it to run slowly enough not to be considered "usable" by most people.
To put it in terms you would understand: I'm talking about hardware roughly on par with an early PowerPC 604: a first- or second-generation Powermac. Would OS X run on those, and if so, would it be fast enough to be usable? I have heard that a G3 is considered the minimum "sane" configuration - is that true?
(I don't mean to imply the computer I'm using right now is the Pentium 166. It's actually an early Pentium 4. My P-166 is in the next room, headless, acting as a file and web server. That was my previous desktop machine, though.)
Yes, by "config option" I meant "preference control". I didn't mean a cryptic compile flag, or hand-editing a config file. I meant a check box somewhere in a Preferences dialog.
Right, so it is. I haven't used Safari. I didn't know it actually lacked the ability to suppress load images. I also didn't know they had replaced the "spinner" (which my browser also does not have). But you have still admitted that it has many features not invented on the spot, like the ability to follow links by clicking on them, or scroll bars to let you display a document larger than your screen. (You didn't admit to having scroll bars, actually - I'm making another assumption here. I rest assured that you will call me on it if necessary.) It did not burst fully formed from the head of Zeus. Nor did most (dare I say all?) other software.
You called me on it. I hadn't actually checked - I just remember reading somewhere (slashdot?) that Apple was planning to release it as open source. Now I see that while its key components are open-source, the browser shell itself possibly isn't. (The exact difference between Safari and WebCore is not clear to me.)
That's silly. You can't go by feature count. Things that are important to me aren't to you, and vice versa. Some features are available of many platforms but are significantly harder / uglier / more cumbersome on one than on another. (Yes, that street runs two ways, too.) What features are worth counting and what ones aren't would be subject to debate. So, I'll just concede from the outset that your OS has more bullet points of things important to the Average Computer User, by which we mean a standard deviation or two from the average end-user desktop peon.
Also it is not obvious what constitutes a unique feature. A lot of Unix software can be built for Darwin, but many Mac users wouldn't consider this software as "available" unless it comes in prepackaged form. (Of course, a lot of this software wouldn't be considered necessary or relevant for the standard deviation of computer users.)
Finally there is the difficulty that I don't know for sure that certain features plain can't be had on OS X. The one I'm thinking of right now is having about ten 144x72-cell text mode "virtual consoles" to switch between at the touch of a hotkey. I don't know if OS X does text consoles at all, but I suppose it might. (No, drawing a text window in graphics mode does not count.)
"How can you claim that you are anti-crack, while still writing a window manager?" — Metacity README
That's silly. You can't go by feature count.
Look, dude. I'm trying to be objective here. I've thrown down the gauntlet. I'm saying that either Mac OS X or Windows XP would do a better job of running your personal computer than Linux does. If you don't want to argue the point, that's fine. I respect that. But don't misrepresent my position. I'm being quite clear, here.
The one I'm thinking of right now is having about ten 144x72-cell text mode "virtual consoles" to switch between at the touch of a hotkey.
Works fine. It's called Terminal.app. And you can have as many consoles of as many sizes as you like, and you can switch between them with a key combination.
No, drawing a text window in graphics mode does not count.
Why not? I'm not arguing that either OS X or XP do exactly the same things in exactly the same way that Linux does them. I'm saying that both OS X and XP do the same job-- running your personal computer-- better than Linux does. If your goal is to have multiple text consoles, then I can tell you how to do that. But if you want to draw an arbitrary line and say, "If it doesn't do it in exactly this way then it's crap," that's fine by me, but don't pretend that you're being honest or fair when you do it. If you want to fall back on arbitrary conditions in order to make it look like Linux wins some kind of objective comparison, go right ahead. I don't think you're fooling anybody by doing so, however.
I write in my journal
And I'm saying that for a question like that, there is no objective answer, so you're chasing after the wind and (intentionally or otherwise) manufacturing dogma which you expect to be received as from on high.
A long time ago I read an article in, oh, must have been BYTE magazine, and the author made the point that everything he uses a computer for, he used to do without a computer - write letters, play games, crunch numbers, draw pictures, etc. The computer just made his tasks better, faster, more fun, but didn't actually change the list of things he did in life.
As far as I'm concerned, a similar argument applies to the computing platforms of today. They can all do the basic things people need out of a computer, but any given OS might accomplish certain tasks with more ease and style than its competitors.
Unfortunately for your argument, measuring ease and style is horribly subjective, not at all suited to your vocabulary of "obviously" and "QED".
Back to me and my personal computer, if you insist on calling it that. Most of the things Linux does, I could technically get done on other OSes such as OS X or even Windows XP - thus the reason I can't make a very convincing list of bullet points. But to say those are "better" for the task than Linux is to ignore the whole factor of user preference. The fact is (and now we're getting objective: this is a fact), I like how my Linux box works, a lot better than I like how Windows XP works. (OS X is somewhere in between, thanks largely to its Unix underpinnings.) I don't see why I should care if The International Twirlip of the Mists Standards Body declares that my expectations for how a computer should behave are obsolete and stupid and that I need to be forcefully re-educated in the Scripture According to Steve Jobs for the good of humanity and the gene pool.
If you think about it, most of the distinguishing features between different computing platforms nowadays are matters of style, not substance. Anti-aliased fonts? Pure style - nobody actually needs them, but to some people they look nicer. Vector-based icons? (The point of this story, in case we've forgotten.) Pure style, nobody needs to scale icons on the fly, it just looks nifty and arguably improves your UI reaction times. The "you've got mail" wave file when you start AOL? Pure style. (Negative, if anything, but hey, whatever.) Pretty, "cluelessness-resistant" OS install process? Pure style - any OS that ever needs to be reinstalled, short of total hard drive failure / replacement, is hopelessly buggy and shouldn't be considered as a contender for best-of-breed anyway. A HIG that does its level best to pretend the second mouse button never happened? Pure style - some people swear by it, others (including of course me) find it horribly constricting.
Why not? Because I have tried both ways and I prefer the one, dangit. (Same reason some people use anti-aliased or LCD sub-pixel font rendering.) Because, for almost every graphics card I've ever used[*], the text modes look nicer and are easier on my eyes - and a lot faster to render, switch to/from, and update. And, since the majority of my screen time is spent doing things that don't need a GUI, I really prefer to switch to graphics mode only when necessary.
[*] Yes, there are a couple of unfortunate exceptions. On certain modern graphics chips, VGA text modes are a mere afterthought and don't do the card justice. I try to avoid those cards (ATI, mainly).
What's that you say? I should try a higher-spec monitor? A nicer graphics card? A faster CPU? Nope, remember, we're talking about the computer I've got now. Spending more money to run a Red Queen's Race back to the status quo isn't part of the deal. (Except spending money to buy Windows XP, I guess you would say.)
"How can you claim that you are anti-crack, while still writing a window manager?" — Metacity README
And I'm saying that for a question like that, there is no objective answer
Sorry, don't buy it. You say, "My computer does X." I reply, "OS X or XP would do Y, which is superior to X." Repeat. The conclusion? Either OS X or XP is objectively better than Linux. It's easy.
But to say those are "better" for the task than Linux is to ignore the whole factor of user preference.
Yes, that's exactly right. I'm completely ignoring user preference for purposes of this discussion, in order to keep things objective. Personally, I don't like using Windows. I just don't care for it. I think it's ugly, and I find it inconsistent. But that's not an objective argument, so I'm just completely setting it aside. The fact is that both Windows XP and Mac OS X are approximately equivalent in terms of capabilities and capacities. Some tasks are easier to do on one versus the other, but the differences are minimal compared to the vast differences between either XP or OS X and Linux.
See? I'm trying to be objective here, and to prove to you that either XP or OS X is better than Linux. You keep saying you don't want to discuss it in those terms. As I said before, that's fine, but don't pretend that you're being honest or fair here.
Anti-aliased fonts? Pure style - nobody actually needs them
Demonstrably false. One the spectrum of ease on the eyes, you have bad anti-aliasing, no anti-aliasing, and good anti-aliasing. Good anti-aliasing reduces eye strain and fatigue, resulting in a demonstrable, measurable benefit to the user.
Vector-based icons? (The point of this story, in case we've forgotten.) Pure style, nobody needs to scale icons on the fly
Again, demonstrably false. Run your computer at a screen resolution of 3840x2400 (the QUXGA format, if you prefer those sorts of names). Without scalable UI elements, your interface will be unusable. Scalable UI provides a demonstrable, objective benefit to the user.
Not to mention benefits for the vision-impaired. Being able to scale the UI is not merely useful to those people; it's essential. Again, demonstrable, objective benefit.
The "you've got mail" wave file when you start AOL? Pure style.
Are we talking about notification in general, or that particular notification specifically? I couldn't give a damn about what AOL uses for notification, but notification in general obviously provides a demonstrable, objective benefit to the user.
Pretty, "cluelessness-resistant" OS install process? Pure style
So ease of use is, in your opinion, pure style? That's so obviously bullshit that I don't even know if it's worth responding. An easy installation process reduces the time required to get a new computer up and running, and reduces the likelihood of user error during the process. Demonstrable, objective benefit.
A HIG that does its level best to pretend the second mouse button never happened? Pure style
Except to people with limited range of movement, such as young children, older people with degenerative afflictions of the hands, people with repetitive stress injuries, and people (like myself) who hope to avoid repetitive stress injuries later in life. Hmm. That covers pretty much everybody, doesn't it? Kids, old people, people with bad hands, and people who want to avoid having bad hands. Demonstrable, objective benefit.
Why not? Because I have tried both ways and I prefer the one, dangit.
Remember, we're being objective here. I'm sticking to the rules; can you?
Because, for almost every graphics card I've ever used[*], the text modes look nicer and are easier on my eyes - and a lot faster to render, switch to/from, and update.
This says more about your lack of experience with modern hardware, I think, than it does about any objective facts.
What's that you say? I should try a higher-spec monitor? A nicer graphics card? A faster CPU? Nope, remember, we're talking about the computer I've got now.
First of all, if you've gone out of your way to assemble a computer that isn't functioning properly, that's your own fault. You just got through telling me that your computer has a Pentium 4 in it, so unless you've done something squirrely, you won't have any problems with your graphics card.
There is, objectively, nothing wrong with overlapping terminal windows with well-anti-aliased text. And you get demonstrable, objective benefits that your text-console-only system cannot provide, such as being able to see more than one console at the same time.
Getting the theme, here? Demonstrable, objective benefits.
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You are failing to define "superior". You are letting the term "objectively better" rule by fiat: "xxx feature is useful because yyy, therefore it is objectively better than not having xxx." That doesn't take into account people like me for whom quite a few features in the "xxx" category are either unimportant or just plain undesirable.
Worse, you have a double standard. When I say "I like the way Linux works", I am calling up an aggregate image of features which provide benefits to me - lots of features, most of them too trivial even to mention, but adding up to an experience I want from a computer. Then you say, "Sorry, I'm not talking about user preferences." So therefore for the purpose of your definitions, my user comfort level is irrelevant. Yet, when you start talking about antialiased fonts, scalable UI elements, one-button mouse design that allegedly helps prevent RSI, etc., then suddenly user comfort is considered an objective measure of utility.
You can't have it both ways. You can either concede that many computing environments (Linux included) can provide the same basic feature set for people to get their work done, differing only in matters of "style" and "ease of use" and "comfort" and "efficiency of interfaces" ... or you can claim that personal preference does play a role in whether one environment can be considered "better" or "worse" than another ... thus making the whole thing at least reasonably subjective.
But so long as you continue to say "This is obviously always better than that, QED", then I have nothing left to say to you. Go ahead and get in a last word (and yes, I'll read it), but I think I'm done here.
There's nothing wrong with my computer. Many people would probably be quite happy with the 1600x1200 graphics window I bring up here on occasion. I am not. And I haven't yet seen a computer whose graphics output can match my high-res text mode for readability and general comfort. Maybe an LCD would eliminate the difference, but nothing I've seen on a CRT does.
"How can you claim that you are anti-crack, while still writing a window manager?" — Metacity README
So therefore for the purpose of your definitions, my user comfort level is irrelevant.
Boy, are you missing the point.
If you can name some feature or characteristic of your computer that provides you with a demonstrable, objective benefit, do so. For example-- I'm totally making this up, just to explain what I'm talking about-- let's say you're blind, and Linux provides a comprehensive non-visual user interface. Braille, or audio, or whatever. That's a demonstrable, objective benefit. I would be unable to argue with that, and I would humbly admit defeat and shut up.
If, on the other hand, you were to day, "I like pink better than blue, and my computer draws everything in various shades of pink," that would not provide a demonstrable, objective benefit. That would be purely a matter of personal preference. As you so wisely pointed out, arguing about preferences is like counting dancing angels on the head of a pin; it gets you nowhere.
Now do you understand the terms? We're talking about demonstrable, objective benefits. Not preferences. It is not true to say that your "comfort level is irrelevant."
Got it?
But so long as you continue to say "This is obviously always better than that, QED", then I have nothing left to say to you.
Okay. If you don't want to have the discussion, that's fine. But let no one think that I am being anything less that totally fair. I'm trying to get to the objective truth here, and you're not playing along. Which, as I've said many times before, is fine, it's your prerogative, and I'll respect your choice.
Many people would probably be quite happy with the 1600x1200 graphics window I bring up here on occasion. I am not.
Do you have a demonstrable, objective reason for this dissatisfaction, or are we simply in the realm of "I like pink?" Let's separate the objective from the preferential and get down to brass tacks!
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(I swore I was getting off this bus ... oh well, one quick question, one quick answer.)
I thought I'd mentioned it once or thrice already. In fact, I'm sure I did. I find my high-res text mode more readable and easier on the eyes than any graphics mode I've seen so far. I guess you must think that's a "pink" thing. Well, I think your antialiased fonts are a "pink" thing too - they aren't more readable to me. Actually I generally can't tell much difference. (I'm told sub-pixel antialiasing makes a much bigger difference, but I don't have an LCD.) So between you and me, we still can't agree on what constitutes an objective, measurable and repeatable improvement in user experience. Your explanation is that I just don't get it. Mine is that such improvements are very few and far between, and have basically all been done by everyone years ago - what's left is eye candy and "pink" preferences that one hopes will work for more people than not.
I think the way you and I use computers is so far apart that you're having trouble imagining why I find so many of your gee-whiz innovations useless, boring or even negative. To you it is self-evident ("QED!") that having these features is unilaterally better than not having them. To me it's not. Again, I don't think we're ever going to agree on this. And again, I think I'll shut up now. (Oh - if you're planning to respond - can you please let at least one post go by without the patronising "ok if you don't want to discuss this, that's fine, your prerogative, feel free to keep your closed, illogical mind" line? It's not that I'm shying away from what I feel is an indefensible position; it's that AFAICS you and I have such a high phase mismatch that I very much doubt this is anything but a waste of both our time.)
"How can you claim that you are anti-crack, while still writing a window manager?" — Metacity README
I find my high-res text mode more readable and easier on the eyes than any graphics mode I've seen so far.
;-)
;-)
The only thing that proves is that you've never-- or won't admit that you've ever-- seen properly rendered anti-aliased text.
they aren't more readable to me. Actually I generally can't tell much difference.
Oh, come on. I can understand willful ignorance-- "if I never look at a modern graphical operating system, I can continue to pretend that my circa-1970 technology is superior"-- but this is just silly. If you seriously can't tell the difference between anti-aliased text and non-anti-aliased text, you've got some kind of serious vision impairment. The difference is obvious! Hell, I'll email you a screen-shot if that's what it will take. Oh, wait, that probably won't do any good. You won't be able to view it unless I render it in ASCII-art form.
To you it is self-evident ("QED!") that having these features is unilaterally better than not having them. To me it's not.
Well, then, offer up some kind of argument for why I'm wrong, instead of just sitting there and going "nuh-uh" over and over again.
Oh - if you're planning to respond - can you please let at least one post go by without the patronising "ok if you don't want to discuss this, that's fine, your prerogative, feel free to keep your closed, illogical mind" line?
Okay, if you don't want to discuss this, that's fine. It's your prerogative. Feel free to keep your closed, illogical mind.
Seriously, I was hoping we could have a constructive argument on this subject. I really, sincerely believe that I'm right and that you're wrong, and I'd love an opportunity to convince you of the fact. But if you'd prefer to stand by statements like "I can't tell the difference," then it's going to be tough for me to win you over. So it's entirely up to you. Fair enough?
I write in my journal