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Firefox 1.1 Plans Native SVG Support
Spy Hunter writes "The Scalable Vector Graphics format has yet to take off on the web, perhaps due to a small installed base of SVG-enabled browsers. That could soon change as the latest Firefox 1.1 nightly builds have started coming with native SVG support compiled in and enabled by default. If this feature makes into the Firefox 1.1 release (which is not certain, but likely, as the developers want it to happen) it will increase the number of web users who have an SVG renderer installed. But perhaps more interesting than that is the possibility of mixing SVG graphic elements directly into the markup of regular XHTML pages, freeing vector graphics from the small rectangle of a browser plugin and opening up a host of exciting new possibilities for web developers. This is enabled by the integration of SVG directly into the Gecko rendering engine, instead of as a browser plugin. With such a useful web developer feature available only in Firefox, could we soon start seeing websites asking their users to download Firefox to get the best browsing experience?"
could we soon start seeing websites asking their users to download Firefox to get the best browsing experience?"
No, because IE will adopt a slightly different version of SVG and by virtue of it already containing 80% of the market, will force firefox to display the IE-compatible SVG, and things will be the same as ever before.
Monopolies, y'know?
Had you written this post a year ago, you would've said "90%" of the market. How much you wanna bet it'll be down to 70% or lower in another year?
...will eventually be widely adopted, but it will be only hours before a spammer uses it to block spam filters--random graphical elements, scattered in the middle of words?
And you thought cyrillic characters were bad.
Just another "DOJ fascist authoritarian totalitarian bootlicker" -- Zeio
Its failure to take off prolly has nothing to do with the ubiquitious support for Flash..
a lableVectorGraphics/default.aspx
Fair point, however I'd say that no, Flash hasn't supplanted the role that SVG could perform, and there still is a huge void waiting to be filled.
The reality is that the web is largely full of static, raster graphics (most graphs, as a simple example, exist as tiny craptacularly printing, non-interactive GIFs) - most of which would be better served by interactive, "infinite resolution" vector graphics.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/msdnmag/issues/03/07/Sc
"With such a useful web developer feature available only in Firefox, could we soon start seeing websites asking their users to download Firefox to get the best browsing experience?"
... just like they have for PNG and (proper) CSS2.
No.
First of all, it's also available in Opera 8.
Second of all, at the risk of sounding like a troll, people will simply find ways around using SVG until IE supports it
Who doesn't like free music?
CAn'T CompreHend SARcaSm?
freeing vector graphics from the small rectangle of a browser plugin and opening up a host of exciting new possibilities for web developers
Sounds like a whole new annoying type of advertising coming our way.
I hope that they choose features carefully and don't start bloating firefox.
I'm all for there being a library of extentions we can add into firefox if we wish to.
I don't think stuffing lots of features into firefox is what would make IE users switch.
"With such a useful web developer feature available only in Firefox, could we soon start seeing websites asking their users to download Firefox to get the best browsing experience?"
With the continual complaints I see about people irritated by sites that use features only supported by IE, and that cause the page to render incorrectly in other browsers, why would developers using Firefox-only features be any different or better?
The keyword is best. Lets just hope some webmasters don't start doing what some IE designers have done, blocked out an entire website because of not using the correct browser. Most of the sites that say my Firefox is "not up-to-date as the latest Interenet Explorer" will render just fine, if they hadn't put up blockades to their content.
It's their loss.
I dunno; if this thing works without crashing my browser, hogging 100% of the system's CPU, or blasting irritating sounds (and if it's used for useful content and presentation instead of lame menus or "flash-only" styled pages), it might just take off.
Flash is disabled on this machine because it does exactly one of two things in a web page: 1) show an ad, or 2) replaces perfectly servicable text (or even image-based) links in menus and navigation widgets that just ends up slowing everything down. I've already loaded the page. I shouldn't have to wait for the menus to load, too, just so your cute logo can flicker or rotate or so your menus can do impressive, flashy transitions that slow things down even more.
Read my stuff.
(From TFA) "With such a useful web developer feature available only in Firefox, could we soon start seeing websites asking their users to download Firefox to get the best browsing experience?""
Sure, if the webmasters are fucking retards.
Think about it, if you use SVG all over your site and say "Download Firefox or you wont be able to view this site." the 9X% (I use 9X since no one agrees on numbers.) Internet Explorer users would simply hit the back button and go find somewhere else to get whatever they were wanting from your site.
The only case where that might be acceptable is maybe in a situation where there is only a few users or where you are the exclusive provider of information on a topic.
So yes, webmasters will start telling users that they have to use FF to view their website... if they're fucking retards.
ND
This statement is forty-five characters long.
Fair point, however I'd say that no, Flash hasn't supplanted the role that SVG could perform, and there still is a huge void waiting to be filled.
I think his point was more along the lines that Flash lowered the incentive for anyone to rush to market with a really good SVG implementation.
Of course you are correct that full SVG support would be a really good thing for the web. I would go so far as to say it's the most significant advancement of design possibilities since the introduction of the TABLE element.
ANd as an aside, please un-troll who I responded to. Someone who doesnt understand what SVG is would naturally ask this question.
Or should we all assume that we all are super-smart and questions are stupid? If you think so, no wonder people hate lots of techies.
I fear that the map data copyright holders would object to this, since the data would now be far easier to take, and reprocess into large maps for your own use.
could we soon start seeing websites asking their users to download Firefox to get the best browsing experience?
I bloody well hope not. If I do I'll know that the website(s) in question have been designed by idiots. As Tim Berners-Lee states in Technology Review, July 1996:
"Anyone who slaps a 'this page is best viewed with Browser X' label on a Web page appears to be yearning for the bad old days, before the Web, when you had very little chance of reading a document written on another computer, another word processor, or another network."
So any sites saying "best viewed with..." are run by idiots - whether that "browser X" be Firefox, IE, Safari, Konqueror or even Lynx etc. etc.
Websites should be written to standards so they can be viewed by users in the browser of their choice. This is especially true to allow access for disabled users. That's the whole fucking point of the web.
And it's another reason that having Flash only websites is the WORST thing you can do. A colleague of mine at work is visually impaired and has to use a 21" monitor at 640 by 480 with a high contrast scheme. He still has to read the text by putting his face about 10" from the screen and scanning across the monitor. Flash websites are totally inaccessible to him.
And every day the internet fills up with crappy flash covered apologies for web pages built by idiots, for idiots, Ho hum...
Sky subscribers are morons. They pay to be advertised at !
Won't it be regarded as an embrace-or-extend move by Mozilla?
Maybe. If the Mozilla foundation were a gigantic monopoly which seeked to break standards specifically for the purpose of creating compatibility problems with competing browsers in favor of their own proprietary alternative.
Wait. They're not a monopoly. They're implementing a standard and not breaking one. They're doing nothing proprietary.
Remember, it was Microsoft that coined the term "embrace and extend." Changes are not bad in and of themselves, but web browsers need to be interoperable and standards-compliant, so different browsers will render the same thing the same way. Copying IE's rendering to display those pages that are designed around IE is compatible with IE, but IE alone, and ultimately just gives Microsoft carte blanche to dictate the development of HTML. The Mozilla guys are doing it the right way here.
I'm really not concered here with the reasons why.
But let me tell you what I see:
But, let's look in the other direction, Flash:
In short, I don't see a whole lot of excitement about Flash, except from one crowd: Artist and graphic designer types.
The point isn't whether my perceptions about Flash or SVG themselves are correct. The point is whether my perceptions of the communities around them are correct.
If designers and art types, and a handful of programmers are excited about Flash- okay, that's one thing.
But if most programmers and developers are excited about SVG, that's another thing entirely. Who writes the apps? Who writes the programming languages? Who writes the tools?
Devs have shown themselves not to be terribly excited about Flash. However, there's a lot of excitement around SVG.
So, you know- you put 2 and 2 together, and you come out with: SVG will be the one that busts the bubble. We won't be trapped in little boxes anymore.
Much of the software is already here. This thing has been in planning and development for years and years and yeras. So, we already have all these libraries, that are just being integrated into the respective platforms. So: We have every reason to believe this will work.
I don't know why Flash didn't work. I don't even have to know particularly why Flash didn't work. All I have to do is see is that SVG worked: It struck the chord the developers needed to play along with.