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Article:
SVG: A Sure Bet
Subject: Missing the point
Date: 2003-07-17 18:03:57
From: Paul Prescod
Response to: Missing the point
Tony says: "Flash however, is an entire platform in which you develop Rich Media Applications and Presentations"


Well, my presentation is available in SVG here:


http://www.blastradius.com/svgopen2003/


And SVG can embed animations, sound and video. That sounds like Rich Media Applications. So SVG can do Rich Media Applications and Presentations. You might want to look into SMIL.


Tony says: "The thing that this article fails to point out is where SVG really will succeed. Being a standard transmission medium for vector graphics information from one application to another."


The article says: "Many SVG importers, exporters, and converters are already available. Users increasingly expect every graphics manipulation or visualization program to support SVG import and export." It also says: "SVG will also become the interchange syntax for all sorts of industry-specific or corporation-specific data visualization systems, from maps of oil fields to architectural designs to molecular models."


Tony says: "I have created hundreds of commercial projects with Flash for the web and for the desktop, and for the pocket PC, and for cell phones, and for playstation, so the point about going where Flash can't go is rubbish"


Is Flash going to be integrated into Linux desktops? Is Flash going to be a part of the 3GPP standards? Is there a project to integrate SVG into X-Windows.


Tony says: "It makes me laugh when I think that in the next couple years, all of these SVG people that have been bitching at Flash, saying SVG is a Flash Killer, could suddenly find themselves using the Flash Player as their main display plug-in."


Tony: "And it is likely that in the future the Flash Player will support it natively, because the Flash Player is the most widely adopted vector graphics renderer out there."


If Macromedia produced a standards-based media platform I would be overjoyed. I don't care if it is called the 'Flash Player' as long as it consumes a subset of SVG, SMIL and Javascript comparable in size to the competitive SVG implementations. If you want to treat that as "Flash wins" that's fine. In my opinion, that would be everybody winning.


But to be just a little childish: what could more vividely prove my point than Macromedia adopting Flash? Standards can go places that proprietary languages cannot. Macromedia can support SVG and be on an equal ground with everyone else. Adobe cannot create a Flash viewer and be on equal ground with Macromedia. Thus, one of those scenarios is feasible and the other is not. That's why SVG will "win" in the sense of being much more ubiquitous than Flash.

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  • Missing the point
    2003-07-19 18:21:48 x emplify [Reply]

    Paul wrote: "Well, my presentation is available in SVG here:
    http://www.blastradius.com/svgopen2003/
    "


    Unfortunately I could not view this using either the Corel viewer in Mozilla 1.4 in Windows XP or using the Java open-source Batik Squiggle SVG viewer.


    I found the following errors:


    1) At line 14973: equality (==) mistyped as assignment (=)


    My fix, change from:
    while (gpage = doc.getElementById("Page_"+p)) {
    to:
    while (gpage == doc.getElementById("Page_"+p)) {

    2) At line 5370, col 167: incomplete path element, and path element not allowed within tspan element


    My fix, change from:
    <path d="M180.343,153.481c0,27
    to:
    <!--<path d="M180.343,153.481c0,27-->


    At this point the file would still not work in the the viewers due to more scripting related problems.


    When I came across SVG three years ago, I too was very excited by the possiblities that it offered. I applaud Paul's efforts to promote SVG. However my inability to view this file highlights one of the problems SVG faces: generators and viewers that do not follow the SVG specification.


    It seems that the SVG generator Paul used to produce his presentation produced non well-formed XML, invalid SVG and erroneous EcmaScript. Presumably some SVG viewer allows the file to be viewed dispite the mistakes, leading to the false belief that it is conformant SVG.


    It is up to SVG developers to demand that implementors respect the SVG specfication, otherwise all the promise of interoperability is for nothing. In the mean time those producing SVG for the web should check their files for cross viewer compatibility.

    • Missing the point
      2003-07-22 17:42:14 Paul Prescod [Reply]

      1) At line 14973: equality (==) mistyped as assignment (=)


      Actually this is legal ECMAscript.


      At line 5370, col 167: incomplete path element


      There is no path element there. There is some literal character data using the ampersand greater-than character but no XML parser should treat that as an element and no SVG viewer should either. Whichever viewer you were using that does this is making a mistake.


      For now, the Adobe implementation is quite a bit ahead of the others in implementing advanced features of the spec.



      • Missing the point
        2003-07-22 20:13:15 x emplify [Reply]

        Apologies for the mistakes in my analysis. In the Mozilla browser status bar, the Corel Viewer suggested that the = instead of == maybe a mistake. Doing view SVG source from the Corel Viewer in Mozilla gave me the XML with the <path replaced by the
        Still, there is a null pointer exception in the Batik Squiggle viewer that is preventing the file from being viewed. Not sure if this is a spec violation on the part of the file, or a lack of something implemented in Batik.


        Regardless I would still suggest that SVG developers use a subset of the SVG specification that can be viewed in all major SVG viewers. I would also like generation tools that have an option to produce cross-viewer compatible SVG.


        For over a year I have been using Mozilla because it beats IE on features hands down. Also using Mozilla means I can use the same browser on both Windows at work and my Linux desktop at home. Until I can view the majority of SVG files on the Web in the latest release of Mozilla, SVG is a dead Web format for me. I would imagine that there are many Linux users that feel the same way.


        I hope that the newly formed Mozilla Foundation places more emphasis on the development of native support for SVG in the near future.

        • Missing the point
          2003-07-28 20:48:59 Stuart Begg [Reply]

          FYI: I am able to view the referenced SVG presentations using Mozilla 1.4 on Mac OS X 10.2.6, with the Adobe SVG Plug-in (v3.0). I have not tried any of the other plug-ins you mention.

    • Missing the point
      2003-07-20 12:49:49 Paul Prescod [Reply]

      Thanks for the report. I've forwarded it to the makers of the software. SVG developers should definately test with at least Adobe SVG and Batik.


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