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Macromedia: More FUD About SVG
Robin Berjon writes "Macromedia recently announced that its latest version of Flash Lite (a limited Flash for mobile devices) was to support SVG Tiny 1.1, and support it fully (though no one has yet been able to verify that assertion). For a moment, the Web community wondered if they might be playing nice at last, after yielding to massive pressure from the mobile market to support W3C and 3GPP standards, or if they simply meant to use SVG as a trojan to get Flash into mobile devices. An article freshly published on Macromedia's web site clearly makes the case that they're after the latter, speading as much FUD as possible along the way. Thankfully, Antoine Quint decided to respond in a brief O'Reilly Net article in which he debunks Macromedia's marketing lies one by one, and expands on the wondrous features of SVG Tiny 1.1 and the shortly upcoming SVG Tiny 1.2 that make people drool before their mobile phones.
"
Lies filled with bunk are the worst lies of all.
Rebuttal already lined up for the 'Flash sucks' brigade. Take it away you 'Flash is a bad technology because it is abused by a few clueless web designers' merchants.
Drill baby drill - on Mars
There's another company using SVG, caled Plazmic. Their stuff really enhances software for the blackberry. From using svg, I really hope that it becomes a standard rather than how Macromedia has dominated the field. It seems to somewhat keep up with flash. Also it makes blackberry apps look great. :>
Flashturbators those Macromedia people are. We'd much rather drool before SVG on our mobile phones.
...
Second thoughts, euuw
"It's not your information. It's information about you" - John Ford, Vice President, Equifax
Tell me more so I know how to keep it off my systems.
For a so-called debunking, there's an awful lot of "Yes, this is true, but it doesn't tell the whole story" in the article. Quint's article reads like a panic attack waiting for a problem.
Most Flash content I've seen is ads or novelties. I've found very few sites where Flash contributes anytihng to the site.
The last thing I want on my web enabled phone is crappy Flash content slowing my downloads even further.
I went to an online commerce site where all the merchandise was viewable only in Flash animations. I saved some money that day and the website operator lost a sale.
Anomalous: deviating from what is usual, normal, or expected
Canard: a false or unfounded repor
If they would just realise people would use their products to create QuickTime/SVG over Director/Shockwave, they would be OK.
Macromedia has never been a first to market company, they just create great tools.
Not since Marie-Antoinette played milkmaid has looking simple and honest been so fake and complicated.
Nothing beats a great product naming scheme for grabbing mindshare. Today they launch Flash Lite, but they still have the following absolutely smashing names at their disposal:
...
- Flash Flood
- Flash Gordon
- Flash Card
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
Nope, you're not missing anything. Just a filler.
[optikshell.com] My weblog / gathering of neat (read geek) stuff.
A grammer error in the opening line, a photo that makes the guy look like he's smoking crack, and a writing style that makes him sound like a disgruntled MACR ex-employee. FUD from Macromedia? I think I know where the real FUD is coming from here.
Drill baby drill - on Mars
Quint seems under the impression that all Flash involves splashy, obnoxous animations. That was the first use of Flash, but things are changing. Flash forms provide a form-like presentation that can do client-side actions without Javascript. Given the number of folks who surf with JS turned off, why is this a "bad thing."
Please understand what Flash is today, not what it was 3 years ago,
Is there a Flash Animation editor for Linux yet? I don't mean stuff that'll save to SWF like the drawing tool for OpenOffice or sodipodi. I'm talking about stuff that'll make animations, deal with actionscripting, and support embedded sounds.
It seems a natural progression from the projects that are creating libraries to be able to do such things. Is it ming? I don't remember.
I know the whole "Flash Sucks" thing and the "Macromedia is evil" thing but there are uses for it in one form or another..especially for artsy/multimedia-based projects. Are there any Open Source projects out there that can substitute for Flash MX or will WINE still be the only way to get through?
What I don't like about Flash is its inability to easily and quickly be turned off (or on). This plugin really plugged in and it's difficult to pull out.
Flash might have its use in mobile device, like those little Flash games. However I would rather see Flash as a console-type application, that one can turn on and run games with it, instead of an invisible and annoying plug-in that appears everywhere.
Summary:
"Macromedia must be lying because they make Flash and we all hate Flash because someone used it for a banner ad."
No matter what play on words and rewrite of definitions Macromedia folks can come up with, Flash Lite is not standard.
Macromedia Flash is standard, whether "Flash Lite" is or isn't. There are thousands of Flash developers and hundreds of millions of Flash player installations. Flash MX managed to accomplish what no other platform has: cross-platform web multimedia with a WORKING AUTHORING APPLICATION and a WORKING PLAYER at the SAME TIME.
Just because Macromedia is making money doesn't make everything they say FUD. They make the best web development tools in the business, period. They don't have to support open standards, but they are supporting SVG, and Fireworks+Flash have the best commercial support for PNG on the market. These are good things(tm). The anti-Macromedia-because-they-make-Flash thing is getting REALLY old.
Business isn't willing to pay for products, innovation and careers, so we get brands, mortgage commercials and layoffs.
SVG really is a great standard, and is incorporated into so many good standards-based products.
I'm not against Macromedia by any stretch of the imagination, but SVG really is a breakthrough. I look forward to a day when bitmap graphics are only needed for photographic representations on web sites.
"Politicians find new names for institutions which under old names have become odious to the people."
If they natively supported linux, I'm sure I could begin transitioning many of my web-designer friends to linux...
Also, I'm not sure if this really classifies as FUD; it's just markedroid speak. All companies do this. Does anyone take what marketing spews seriously from any company?
He quotes from his own blog instead of writing
new content for O'Reilly. What a power trip.
Hmm, let me see:
/GUESS/ there is a tool set out there, but who in their right mind would want to use it?
Flash: Widely supported, good tool set, easy to use, looks good, performance varies but is generally acceptable if the artist didn't go massivly nuts.
SVG: Slow as hell no matter how fast your machine is, poor support, I
Honestly, I think the SVG toolset is larger than the Flash toolset, but Flash, umm, well, works.
And there is the difference folks. Flash and Shockwave are easy to install, frequently updated (albiet with slower and slower versions each time, heh, but Flash HAS gotten much more powerful over the years), and it actually shows moving image thingies at a speed faster than a crawl.
And no, don't link to Adobe's laughable SVG plugin.
Need help treating your acne? Come here!
it is verbose and largly full of logical flaws
... light or heavy, so we don't care. Web is a better place without Flash.
Flash sucks because it is not an open standard; it is a closed, proprietary standard controlled by one company. Everything else being equal, I prefer an open standard over a closed stadnard.
The anonymous poster above speaks the truth -- you are bashing for the sake of bashing.
Yeah, it's a "trojan", but you say that like it's a bad thing.
Look, a lot of phone makers want SVG-Tiny support on their phone. Macromedia wants to put Flash Lite on a lot of phones. This is an obvious way to make that happen.
But geez, there's no big conspiracy to get proprietary stuff on phones just to Stick It To You Open Source guys... we just have a technical solution that we happen to think is pretty damn good, that will suit the mobile market well. So what if it's proprietary? I defy you to show be ONE SINGLE PHONE in existence that runs on Open Source software; phone makers seem to be pretty happy with using whatever will get the job done, without getting all religious about this.
Honestly, I read Slashdot daily, but I'll never understand the peculiar Flash-Is-Evil bias. Yes, there are annoying ads that use it. There are also annoying ads that use animated GIF, and even HTML. It's just a tool, folks, and like the song says, every tool is a weapon if you hold it right.
And for the expected flood of responses saying, "You can do this with SVG+DHTML+SMIL+etc,etc"... bollocks. Just because it's possible doesn't mean it's practical.
Look: 98% of interesting interactive animated stuff on the Web is done using Flash rather than that something else. I submit to you that this is not a coincidence! Artists aren't stupid, and they sure as hell aren't going to spend hundreds of dollars on Flash if there really was a superior (or even comparable) solution available for free.
I'll tell you what: why don't you go off and write a nice, free authoring tool for SVG that is good enough for the Homestar guys to completely replace all those Strong Bad Emails with. (I will, of course, expect the final result needs to be just as bandwidth- and processor-efficient as Flash.) Until then, please, give it a rest.
(Disclaimer: I work for Macromedia (though not related to the Flash Lite effort in any way), so I expect to be ignored or dramatically modded down...)
Found this entry on a blog at svg.org, a nice look at the shortcomings of Macromedia Flex's SVG coverage. Odd timing (Posted July 1), but it fits.
it does not have a committee like W3C stamping its approval.... what's a standard but adoption; if it is adopted, it is a standard, standard means "to compare against", it seems people are comparing SVG to Flash, therefore flash is a standard, QED
i thought cell phones were for making goddamn phone calls, not surfing the web
don't want flash on your cell phone? the choice is easy. don't buy a cell phone with flash on it (or that is compatible with running Flash-Lite or whatever)
vodka, straight up, thank you!
OK, so Macromedia makes a viewer for SVG but they have a preference for their own technololgy. That's like attacking OpenOffice for making a system that can read MS Word documents while encouraging its own document format. Right now Macromedia appears to have done a hell of a lot more to support SVG by making a viewer for it than all of OSS who talks about SVG all day long but I have yet to see a single OSS utility to employ SVG beyond a couple of gimmicky static images. So should we say that open source developers are trying to kill SVG??
AntiFA: An abbreviation for Anti First Amendment.
Dammit! Flash was one of those apps that has kept me from switching to Linux completely. But thanks to this kind of FUD, I'm dropping them completely. I'll build crap using Inkscape or something until they can play nice with others.
This is my sig. There are many like it but this one is mine.
The truth is that Flash is total garbage to begin with. If they don't like SVG, then maybe that's a blessing in disguise. Perhaps SVG will see more use in actual web/desktop content instead of really annoying banner ads and braindead web pages that Flash is used for. If there's one plugin I go out of my way to avoid installing on my pc, it's Flashplayer. I wish mozilla would block all that crap, just like cookies and popups.
No doubt, MM is a marketing driven company. And one of the rare profitable ones in the pure software business. And Macromedias Flash IDE sucks. It's near unusable for professional large scale developement of flash apps. Like almost every IDE they offer.
But nevertheless Flash is the most widespread professional rich media plattform. And it's a good one too.
The recent release of flash's PL ActionScript (V 2) has even has stepped on to a professional level with solid oop and error handling very simular to Java.
There are even serious OSS projects developing on it. Xical comes to mind as one.
So quit the flash bashing. There are flash sites that suck a lot. That's because every Idiot can grab a ripped Flash IDE and start clicking some crap together. Ok, I get that. But that doesn't mean Flash is bad. Just like bad Java apps won't make a bad java platform. Keep that in mind before you start ranting on what you don't know whoot about.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
Redundant, yet the first one to state it. Good job, mods.
Flash, interestingly enough, is very popular in Latin America. Than again, so is fotolog.
Karma is an angry black woman in a beat up Plymouth Reliant with two flat tires that only turns left.
What a racist piece of shit comment.
Need I remind... SWF is an open document format. http://www.openswf.org
Oops. I should clarify this a bit. The SWF standard is available from Macromedia. I think this is the proper link. The FLA file format is proprietary.
(S(SKK)(SKK))(S(SKK)(SKK))
Great idea. Let's get rid of all the phsyical material that people can read so that in the future, when robots take over, they can easily deny us the digital information as nothing phsyical will exist to worry about. Good idea.
robots.
Anyone who has been checking out the latest developments by rasterman (enlightenment) may be aware of the upcoming 'edje' library, which appears to be quite promising for desktop, as well as embedded applications, phones, wonderapps and such.
http://www.enlightenment.org/pages/systems.html
"Edje is one of the more unique parts of EFL, combining many things that Shockwave / FLASH can do with some things it can't, but instead of being designed as a player, it is designed as a slave library to be used by an application to enhance the applications content and display via external compressed data files. It is being expanded continuously, and thanks to its clean design is easy to improve."
Something to keep an eye on for sure!
--
Society has traditionally always tried to find scapegoats for its problems. Well, here I am.
Since when have Slashdot articles become flamebait? Come on guys - show some editorial restraint!
:-) ).
I am not a fan of Macromedia one way or the other but gimme a break. Flash has not taken over anything. It is just one of many gimmicks used to make web sites (and now mobile sites) "flashier".
Perhaps Slashdot's ire might better be spent on ActiveX controls or those who coopt Javascript? Flash is a tempest in a teapot (though the headline is definitely an attention getter
Life is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
William Shakespeare
...if the normal XML whiner crowd around here doesn't complain about SVG being XML. :)
From the Jargon Dictionary: "FUD /fuhd/ n. Defined by Gene Amdahl after he left IBM to found his own company: "FUD is the fear, uncertainty, and doubt that IBM sales people instill in the minds of potential customers who might be considering [Amdahl] products." The idea, of course, was to persuade them to go with safe IBM gear rather than with competitors' equipment. This implicit coercion was traditionally accomplished by promising that Good Things would happen to people who stuck with IBM, but Dark Shadows loomed over the future of competitors' equipment or software. See IBM. After 1990 the term FUD was associated increasingly frequently with Microsoft, and has become generalized to refer to any kind of disinformation used as a competitive weapon."
I just thought I'd share, since when I read the article I thought WTF is FUD?
The Raging Tech - an IT professional's take on love, life, gaming, tv, movies, technology, entrepreneurial woe, and blog
i mean maybe people who like annoying crap like it but i think most dont
lately I've been hearing alot about this horrible upcoming MS thing called XAML - and (quoting a nameless slashdotter) how it's akin to VB crack for its power and ease of use.
I could be wrong, but I think many people have overlooked that the kind of pervasive scary crap is already here, and it has been here for awhile now./ development/
/ video/
While I love Java and use it heavily, I admit that Flash is more ubiquitious it runs on almost every major OS and browser. Delivers more on the write once run anywhere.
-Flash is extremely fast and easy to install. it's literally point and click. I don't even think the player is even a 1mb...
-Flash is extremely easy to learn and use: my female, graphic designer cousin who hates anything "technical and dorky" makes flash apps all the time; hell most of flash dev is visual drag and drop
-Flash is getting more powerful by the minute: http://www.macromedia.com/software/flash/flashpro
http://www.macromedia.com/software/flash/flashpro
http://www.macromedia.com/software/central/
What's FUD? all i can think of is"fudged up data"...Am i even on the right track? it would help my future reading of /.
Gee, after "successfully" killing *BSD, our BSD-is-dying troll now moves on to another OS-maker that frightens Linux zealots: Apple. Only complete wierdos would think that anonymous troll postings on slashdot are going to advance the acceptance of Linux.
o come on.
SVG sucks royally.
with flash, the development tools are there, the player is better, the functionality is there -- everything that SVG doesnt have. most of the often-claimed gripes and shortcomings of flash are made by mostly narrow-minded, mis-informed people that made up their mind about flash in 1998 -- they've made up their mind that flash is evil, and they'll hear nothing else about it. these people obviously can't tell the difference between flash applications produced by a developer with a good sense of usability and integration and when it's not -- and choose to blame the technology rather than where the blame for bad use of flash really belongs: the developer
it's also shown that any browser manufacturer will never completely adopt standards anyway -- this is where a proprietary technology comes very much in handy, as the player is always made by the same company. i can build my interfaces in flash, and it will look and work the same in any browser, guaranteed. 'standards' be damned.
"I defy you to show be ONE SINGLE PHONE in existence that runs on Open Source software; phone makers seem to be pretty happy with using whatever will get the job done, without getting all religious about this."
Here's a page that lists several such phones, in various stages of availability from Now to In-Development.
Re: the "Flash is evil" meme, well, I don't find it evil. I just like graphics formats (including creation tools) to have at least some free / open-source equivalent, so there's some chance of it being supported on all-free/Free platforms. Mileage obviously varies. If I could view Flash, and create (even if awkwardly) Flash presenations using all Free software, then I certainly wouldn't begrudge Macromedia making lots of money selling their source-secret versionto people who liked Macromedia's interface best. More power to you.
Flash can be used well or annoyingly, all up to the designer; it's a shame though that many sites rely on it at the expense of those who for various reasons don't want to need Flash.
(I could well be wrong; are there yet any working, Free tools for creating Flash presentations?)
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
Pop-ups and pop-unders can be easily cured by Mozilla or other popup blockers without having to give up javascript. Java can be turned on and off easily via a preference pane.
But what about Flash? For the users who hate 90% of Flash content (ads) but are very interested in 10% of it (for example, New York Times multimedia presentations), there is no easy solution. No preference pane that allows you to turn it on and off quickly. Luckily the Mozilla's flashblock can take care of this problem, but IE users are stuck with tons of undesired content.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I'd just like to take this opportunity to point out how amazingly lame the Flash IDE is. As a full time Flash developer, it makes me suicidal.
I hope to God that one day SVG will deliver and finally provide some much needed competition for Macromedia.
The Flash player is pretty decent, it's really just the IDE that drives me so nuts that I resort to offtopic rants about it....
With Macromedia promising full SVGT support in Flash Lite, yet showing they really don't know much about the standard; is this just the same trick all over again?
You'll have SVGT and Macromedia SVGT, and they'll be mostly compatible, but not have a consistent experience due to Macromedia "bugs".
One thing about the mobile industry I have noticed, is they have been alot smarter than PC makers when it comes to deploying technologies on their platforms. I suspect mobile makers will see this problem in advance and opt away from Flash Lite's SVGT support.
(Historically mobile makers have tested each platform in a small number of phones, such as Windows CE for mobiles, they are generally smart enough to market test products to see how they are adopted, rather than attempt to force new standards down throats. This is why competition is a good thing, with competition it's the consumers that dictate product direction through sales.)
Need I remind: Microsoft buys Macromedia. Guess what happens to your "open" format?
Karma is an angry black woman in a beat up Plymouth Reliant with two flat tires that only turns left.
is a bit offensive, don't you think?
two tools every SVGer should have.
The way that I understand it is that SVG is completely open - it is language based so you can go in directly and modify the code. Personally, I would give a lot to be able to do this with Flash. In general, no matter how good the tools are (and I happen to think Macromedia's are pretty darn good) I always like to have the option of directly modifying the source code - for optimazation and because there is always something that's much more difficult than it should be to do through a software interface.
Next time, RTFA.
They're talking about SVG-Tiny. This is a spec you cannot implement half-heartedly. You must implement the entire thing or go home. There are plenty of cellphone vendors waiting in the wings to push this out.
Without Flash, the great Homestarrunner.com would not exist! Although I'm sure they could find another animation medium...
Quit picking on Macromedia. If they can get Flash onto every device in the known universe, more power to them: at least Flash does not try to lock you into a single operating system. The alternative to Flash is the next crop of Microsoft lockware (you think they're going to do XAML/Avalon plugins for Linux or Mac?).
I'll take Flash over the alternatives any day, thank you. And besides, the Flash format is openly documented. What more could you want?
Tired of FB/Google censorship? Visit UNCENSORED!
Sure flash works, is deployed in wider audience, but simply lacks the following stuff.
the truth is here!p ://www.truthtree.com/General/posts/7958.htmlp ://www.ronntaylor.com/bulbs/000454.html
http://www.geocities.com/white_truth/
htt
htt
Comment removed based on user account deletion
from these knowlegeable people.
well, -2 off topic
There seems to be a hint of suprise in the submission.
Why? This is Macromedia. Furthermore it's proprietary. What did you expect, a warm fuzzy feeling?
-- Note: If you don't agree with me, don't bother replying. I won't read it.
what a sweet game... thank you; I've got a 3 year old who just became addicted.
"The problem for your problem!"
Apart from the fact that it is proprietary to the bone, Flash is not necessarily bad. Please stop bitching, that's contra productive and leads to nothing.
The Flash Player VM internally features full ECMA 262 support, a basic XML parser, audio and video codecs, an advanced vector rendering engine, etc, all in a quite stable and secure 500k plugin, and it is the most widespread browser plugin ever (more than 95% of web users are able to play SWF6 content today).
Knowing this, the FP VM could be intelligently used as a core framework for zeroinstall implementations of generic XML-fed rendering engines (browsers, web application frameworks). "DENG" is such an engine, rendering subsets of SVG, XForms, XHTML, XFrames, SMIL, and any arbitrary XML markup, styled by CSS 2/3:
http://claus.packts.net/http://claus.packts.net/deng/examples/
http://claus.packts.net/deng/features.php
Flash includes vector graphics (so they're scalable to different size screens). It also includes a lot of other multimedia libraries, like video, MP3 (and othre format) audio, sprites, and full event models for all objects. Its ActionScript 2, a complete logical object programming language, is (open standard) ECMA-script compliant. Its cross-platform (Windows, Mac, Linux) VM is more stable and predictable than Java (on multimedia clients), as well as more widely installed (for targetting as a product developer). Flash is also well known to many productive graphic designers/artists, who can make compelling presentation layers for Flash apps. Flash Lite, if they pull it off, will be a valuable extension of the Flash platform to the huger, more accessible market of mobile devices, like phones, as they take over from "computers" as the target of most software development.
--
make install -not war
Who is this "Karma" who you're complaining about?
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make install -not war
Recent additions to the Flash Actionscript Language make it ideal for an application development platform, particularly its database, HTTP, and XML connectivity. There are simply so many developers out there who know Actionscript that it makes sense to support the system on cell phones. Existing cell phone development tools (particularly BREW) are not only difficult to create simple applications for, but they're intense on the processor and therefore battery life. Flash is incredibly light weight in comparison to a "virtual machine" (Java) and the interface scales to fit whatever sized screen your device may be using. Don't think of it as advertisements for your phone, don't think of it as some sort of evil force trying to create a bunch of garbage pac-man/tetris/pong clones, think of it as a development kit for cell applications.
They should obviously stop rendering SVG files. That will make people happy again.
(Why do SVG evangelists not want more SVG renderers in the world? I don't know for sure, but it's likely the W3C is being bought off by oil payments under the table, or something crooked like that.)
[My english is better than most other people's german, so please point out mistakes politely. Thank you.]
error handling very simular to Java
I would say "error handling very similar to Java". I never heard a proper English word called "simular", although I might make one up to mean "having the quality of sameness", akin to "simultaneous" or "simulation".
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make install -not war
People, give Macromedia some credit. Without Flash we wouldn't have some of the movies that defined a generation. Some of the classics are:
All Your Base
Yatta
Eat Your Oatmeal
This Land is Your Land
And all the other bizarre flash that lives HERE Without Flash we'd be living in a world on Animated GIFS or worse yet ASCII art. Sure Flash is proprietary, has a less than optimal IDE, and costs way to much just to make screwy videos, but it sure has brightened up the web. Additionally, Flash has given me more than one much needed side-splitting laugh. Long live FLASH!
Macromedia states in one part of the article:
SVG-T supports within its profile vector graphics, images, and text, but lacks the ability to add interactivity or audio without the use of additional auxiliary technologies such as JavaScript
Further down the article they say:
Flash Lite, however, provides a common set of ActionScript commands
Note that ActionScript = = JavaScript, however maybe not = = = :)
My point is Flash also implements JavaScript (an "auxiliary technology" of SVG-T). The article makes it seem like a potential point of deliniation between the two formats, but it's not, unless they're complaining about how JavaScript can be implemented for SVG-T compared to Flash.
I honestly didn't know that this was a legitimate company. I have been plagued by something by that name opening several browsers when I enter some sites. I always just swear and click them away without bothering to read them. But one time it really got to me and I read everything in an effort to find a way to contact these people who were taking over my computer. I could find no contact of any kind, so I asumed it was not a legitimate company.
... so I'm a newbie, that doesn't mean I don't have a right to use my computer as I wish, and when I wish. I shouldn't have to wait for some, less that ethical, company to finish what they want to do on my machine! .... or do I actually have to get used to this?
Wow! Was I surprised to see it talked about here! OK, so maby there is something entertaining about it, but does it have to be pushed in such a confusing and distasteful manner? OK
I have been using Flash for years and never knew anything about SVG. Because this article told me so many things about it, I am going to try it out. Thanks Macromedia.
Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt: the nature of Quint's rant defending SVG from Macromedia's announced competition in Flash Lite 1.1. Perhaps Quint's labored writing style is matched by his difficulty in reading MM's announcement, so he actually misunderstands the statements he rejects in his response.
Quint starts his invective:
Troy Evans writes "In doing so, handsets can now support the basic needs of vector graphics as defined in the SVG-T profile, as well as the richer interactive multimedia feature set Flash Lite 1.1 provides".
While he is right in pointing out that technically SVGT 1.1 does not offer a feature range as wide as Flash Lite, lack of programmatic (ie, through scripting an API) interactivity being the major difference, he is a little undermining when saying that SVGT only serves "the basic needs of vector graphics".
Evans' statement about "the basic needs of vector graphics as defined in the SVG-T profile" is slightly ambiguous. It indicates that the basic needs are defined in the profile, but it does not indicate that the profiled defines only the basic needs. Correct writing to indicate that more specific assertion would be punctuated "needs of vector graphics, as defined" - a small difference, but an important one that readers of English understand to indicate the pauses in speech which group phrases for semantic association and therefore modification. Quint lashes out against a straw man statement that he invents, which Evans never asserted. And the actual meaning of Evans' statement, that FL1.1 meets the basic needs defined in the profile, is important.
Quint then tears into Evans' statement that a programming language is required in addition to SVG-T to achieve interactivity (although Quint acknowledges the absence of audio in SVG-T, which FL supplies, along with presumably other multimedia features). Here Quint is more strictly correct, as the declarative association in SVG-T of mouse events with display object properties (like color and position) is minimally interactive. But that's like calling HTML 3.0 a "programming language", which any programmer but the graphic artists masquerading as "HTML programmers" in the bubble would not only admit, but scream in outrage. Logic, structure, any complex behavior or development process requires the kinds of features that Evans is talking about, but which Quint minimizes.
To cap it off, Quint then says that SVG-T has Vodaphone behind it, but not a multi-million dollar company, so it's the underdog compared to FL1.1. Well, FL1.1 hasn't been released, while SVG-T is being deployed by Vodaphone, among others.
Quint wraps up his hack job by showing his SVG fetish, a fanboy attitude that doesn't appreciate the emergence of Flash Light as a more expressive platform for mobile multimedia, deployed more widely - including desktops - than SVG. His professional credits that close the article identify his professional association with SVG, and his dependence on its success for his professional advancement. When deciding whose analysis to trust, it's best to take into account those vested interests. If yours are like mine, in better programming environments to reach more users of more devices, you'll take that into account when reading reviews charging marketers with FUD.
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make install -not war
Thanks for posting a blatent flamebait submission. Nothing like a good flame war to round off the day.
Drill baby drill - on Mars
Simple example: I want a circle. I use a tag. I get a circle.
Complex example: I have a database full of geospatial data. I use perl and some XML modules to generate SVG output.
If I get cocky, I use the DOM to make elements that are interactive and call the script with new parameters (maybe it zooms, or tells it to do additional queries and add an information dialog on top)
it looks reasonably decent... and I didn't have to pay a dime to macromedia... what's wrong with that?
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
I'm no flag-waving Macromedia fan -- to the guy who said Flash was the worst-designed program ever made, I'd have to suggest looking at Director -- but it seems like you're the one with the not-invented-here problem. Macromedia came up with Flash and has published the format for all kinds of people to use how they like. You can't have a say in how it works, though, so you don't want to use it.
Breakfast served all day!
First of all, your statement is patently false.
Most of the features people claim Flash to have are actually features of ActionScript. Even though ActionScript is stored in Flash files, that doesn't mean it's Flash.
And yet perhaps ironically, you seem to ignore that JavaScript can be stored inside SVG files, as well as being linked externally, and you also ignore that SVG can be manipulated by any code which is capable of manipulating a DOM at runtime. This includes JavaScript, Java, ActiveX components, or whatever you want, really.
But you're right in that they shouldn't be compared.
SVG is a standard format for rendering vector images of all kinds, and has uses throughout almost all systems which involve graphics of any kind, whereas Flash is merely a proprietary format designed to put animations in web pages.
Flash is no match at all.
Karma: It's all a bunch of tree-huggin' hippy crap!
Flash is an open SPECIFICATION, meaning Macromedia will tell you how to read and write them. IT IS NOT AN OPEN FORMAT.
If only. Then it would be no worse than PDF. Have you ever read the license terms associated with the published specification? They specifically restrict you to generation and disallow playback implementations. So, no open source flash player. That's not even an open specification, that's just the same sad old we-must-control-things mindset that open source has been fighting since the beginning.
Some of the open source work that's been done has been based on reverse-engineering, but really, just use SVG. It's a real pity too. Flash (the technology, not what it's usually used for) is quite useful and well implemented to boot. Just another case of routing around the damage.
OK so for my job I recently had to do a very simple clickthrough for some UI design work. I would have used straight HTML but I also needed to approximate some fancy UI thing. So even simple 'goto' statements didn't work like they were supposed to. The Flash ActionScript language is one of the most assinine things I've ever encoutered.
Meanwhile, Flash. What is it good for? Absolutely nuthin'! Well OK, funny animations like This Land are great. But most of the time it hinders me getting to the information that I need or want. Car sites are a prime example. Just show me the pictures and let me get to the specs easily!
The Web is primarily a tool for information--Flash has not proven itself to be a good information tool.
VRML was cool. It evolved into X3D, which is still being developed, still being supported by software, and still has web presence here.
It's mystifying that it never took off, because I always figured X3D is a superset of SVG, since you should be able to draw any 2D image using a 3D model, right?
And so much Flash these days is simulating a 3D look by doing all the calculations and displaying 2D polygons. It would be much better if they would just use the real thing.
Karma: It's all a bunch of tree-huggin' hippy crap!
Not without a restart of the browser, it doesn't.
Karma: It's all a bunch of tree-huggin' hippy crap!
Need I remind... just because the specification for something is on the web somewhere, doesn't make it "open."
Karma: It's all a bunch of tree-huggin' hippy crap!
I wouldn't be surprised if Mono or Portable.NET have a XAML plugin of some sort, actually. Of course, if Microsoft get any great competition from Linux due to such a plugin, they will just shut the project down, but they're probably big enough to buy out and shut down Macromedia as well.
Karma: It's all a bunch of tree-huggin' hippy crap!
Again, wrong. SVG documents are considerably larger than equivalent SWF files - the SWF file format is designed to be extremely small and is now compressed (and yes I know SVGZ exists, but it STILL doesn't beat SWF).
There is a lot of hot air coming from the Flash camps about this, but I never see anyone bring up a real third-party assessment of the two file formats.
I had a dig around Google to pretty much no avail, the only thing I found way this little article which had SVGZ showing smaller files than SWF. But trusting one article obviously isn't enough because different types of picture might have different sizes, so it would be good to see some real, major, and most importantly independent studies on this, comparing the file size for the same image, for several different types of image.
Just how many standard SVG viewers are there on all major operating systems
Do you need more than one per operating system? Why?
In any case, there are at least two SVG renderers I know of on Linux, and that's just counting those generated from the GNOME and KDE child projects.
As for mobile phones, there was at least one phone released last year with support for SVG out of the box, and these guys have an SVG viewer that runs on J2ME so you can run it on any J2ME-enabled phone.
So I would reflect your question straight back at you, with the two reversed. Just how many Flash viewers are there on all mobile devices? I would say the answer might be "one", which seems pretty pathetic now, doesn't it? :-)
Karma: It's all a bunch of tree-huggin' hippy crap!
No offense, but as long as Nokia and other cell phone manufacturers work with projects like Mozilla, Safari, Opera, and indirectly KDE Macromedia can play the role of ass-kisser all they want, but it won't matter.
Hypothetical: A team of developers designing an XML server-side application in say, Cocoon 2 Frameworks, is asked about WML/WAP and one of the demands is a scaled down graphics enabled version of certain corporate processes that get served already via the browser of your choice. With SVG support built-into Cocoon 2 do you think the developers who have architected via the MVC+ paradigm a sight that pipelines html4/xhtml1.x/xsl-fo/xsp/wml/svg so on and so forth are going to actually put in the time to ramp up on FLASH when they can just add an SVG-tiny pipeline to an already well-designed sitemap.xmap?
With today's server-side frameworks targeted at multiple end-clients it seems Macromedia should be augmenting SVG by offering the Tools to create SVG-Mobile and SVG1.1/SVG1.2/SVGPrint aware content, as well as get involved with the authoring of the specifications.
Macromedia is in a position where they can take Flash to become SVG but with being a tools vendor offer applications that act as Content Management Tools for Graphics professionals who want to take pre-press ideas to the Web and beyond.
Macromedia needs to realize something: Flash will never win out against SVG when SVG is ready for Prime-time. Too many industry Giants as well as Open Source advocates who actually make the best browsers in the World actually have the clout this time around.
1) Web pages are not supposed to look the same in all browsers
2) Web pages are not supposed to look the same in all browsers
3) Web pages are not supposed to look the same in all browsers
That is a truth that is only in the early stages of emerging. Still, some people (including you) have already realized it. It made me quite happy to see that statement, as far too many spend par too much time on crossbrowser-pixelperfection and other such nonsense.
This is the next ones the design community have to face:
4) Web pages are not supposed to look the same in the same browser for different people
5) Web pages are not (supposed to be) viewed exclusively in browsers
When do they get it - content is what matters. Separate data from presentation please, and let me format my data to my own preferences myself.
I think Flash is good for devices.
I always thought that it'd be nice to have a PDA based entirely on Flash, where all the apps were Flash-based/-authored, etc.
Since I work for a hardware developer I've thought this quite a few times. Its really too bad there aren't any good embedded-Flash based systems around that can be incorporated into devices
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
I find that using Flash for video is often the best use of flash.
Often I have found that in public clusters or other machines, Quicktime or WMP are badly installed, have old versions, etc. By the time I want to watch a video I have to download the latest codec etc, and a locked down XP makes this impossible.
However video on flash works out-of-the-box, and makes it a painless experience.
if i think of a picture format that makes everyone drool, one thing comes to mind.. SVG has built-in porn!
The lack of scripting in Tiny SVG Does acytualy seem like a bit of a problem, sure you can create interactivity (despite what Macromeda say), but an one developing in flash will know the problems that approach leads to. Actionscript (flash scripting) has nwo evolved into a very powerful soltion, which allows me to work side by side with designers, while seperating code from design.
Does any PDA have the CPU and RAM required to run Flash at a respectable speed? It really does take multi-hundred-megahertz desktop CPUs and make them grind to a halt, even on systems with really good process schedulers. This leads me to wonder how low-power PDA CPUs will cope, unless, of course, we are talking only about future PDAs that don't exist, yet. I suppose when we have 1-watt 3GHz CPUs, this will all be moot.
One possibility is that when, say, OpenVG is done there will be an efficient and simple interface to underlying PDA/Mobile HW to support the Flash/SVG features without the need for the "1-watt 3GHz CPUs".
I'd say that Flash is the equivalent of Msofts Splash screen for the web and is animated too!
It's not all bad. Without Flash, many people wouldn't have been able to produce their own animations quickly and cheaply. It's acted as the route into the animation industry for thousands. I'm not formally trained, and to do what I do (The Amazing Adrenalini Brothers) before the advent of Flash would have been pretty impossible to stumble into: it would require me to do a degree course or be lucky enough to be able to tinker for many years with unwieldy and expensive equipment - camera, rostrum, film/video processing, sound recording, editing equipment, perishable cel/paint/puppets. And without the possibility of broadcast on the net, I'd have to get to grips with publishing and distribution. And get representation to guide me through the quagmire of commissioning and broadcasting.
I've had the theme tune to Quantum Leap going through my head all day... Now you have, too!
Bah. I usually agree that the open source format is the preferred format. But having worked with the flash swf file format and having seen SVG in action, I'll go with flash. Its not even worth trying SVG, SVG Tiny, or any variant.
The 'interactivity' aspect of SVG is laughable. It's on par with Flash v2, which basically gives it just enough interactivity to make it positively annoying, but not at all useful. Give SVG forms(XForms would be nice) and it might be more approachable. It sickens me to think that everyone likes to complain about Flash being annoying, but then support an even more annoying format just because its open source.
There's too much XML bloat within SVG to make it of much use. A flash rectangle is 9 bytes. SVG's is about 40. A flash matrix record is about 5 bytes, SVG's is at least 5 times that. These are basic atomic units used hundreds if not thousands of times throughout a file.
Plus the SVG parser has to compile to an internal vector engine. Flash is already compiled to HIGHLY optimized bytecode.
There's no way I'm going to use hundreds of bytes to describe just one shape. And then waste precious cell phone processing power to parse the xml into an internal format.
If anything, there should be an intermediate bytecode format determined by the W3C to allow for compiled SVGTiny.
I'd love to use SVG a lot more on my pages but I can't SVG just isn't ubiquitous enough. Heck, it doesn't even work on Mozilla.
What I'd like to know is when I'll be able to use SVG in a website and be able to view it with Mozilla? I see a lot of talk about SVG but it's still not included in the main build.
Just because the guy disagrees with most of /. does not make him a troll.
Anybody not interested in the non /. viewpoint is cordially invited to feck off.
One major downfall runs only Internet Explorer. So stuff that. Oh yeah and add the proprietory element too.
I've briefly inspected SVG, I do not know whether the funky tricks I achieved with VML at the time (IE 5.5) could be reproduced with SVG.
VML could be scripted and you could assign code to events (onmouseover,onclick) - most likely SVG shares the same events.
I don't code for IE, I code for all browsers / OS's.
But shame that SVG does not even come with any browser (IE,Mozilla,Opera,etc). And downloading/installing is not straightforward either.
The advantage of VML (and am sure with SVG) over Flash is that if you really wanted to go minimal (ie 5K) you still could have an animated intro or game.
I'm an author of gameswf, a Public Domain SWF player library (for use in 3D accelerated game engines, not browsing the web). In my opinion based on working with it heavily, the SWF format and supporting software is sweet stuff. It's damn tight and focused on things that are useful to visual designers, but still amazingly capable. Nevertheless, calling SWF an "open standard" is disingenuous.
SWF is, in practice, no more open than MS Word DOC. Macromedia publishes a spec, but unfortunately it's not useful for writing software to interpret SWF, due to legal restraints. My own library has had to rely on a lot of sweat and reverse engineering and help from others, and has still only managed to achieve a subset of SWF compatibility.
Read the license on the Macromedia spec, it comes with many strings attached. For example:
I.e. they don't allow you to use the spec to implement a player!
Macromedia does some cool stuff and employs some cool people, but the same company engages in heavy-handed corporate scheming. I don't think that's immoral or anything; corporations need to make money somehow. But people need to see the warm-and-fuzzy "open" bullshit for what it is: a convenient marketing story.
BTW the only truly open SWF specs are reverse-engineered ones. The best one is Alexis' SWF Reference
...but where are the plug-ins that work so well and are so available for the browsers I use?
I've run into bugs so many times now I'm not sure I want to try again anytime soon.
Do you have any links?
(I use Firefox on various OSs and sometimes Konqueror, Galeon, or IE especially for testing - good IE support is crucial is your clients are in the average Joe demographic).
Has it occurred to you to wonder why we turn off javascript? It's not because we dislike javascript in particular, it's because we don't want people like you doing shit like that on our systems. And we don't like it any more when you do it with Flash.