Adobe and SVG

I'm a member of the Open Web Advocacy group set up by Google.  It is a  
private group, but the posts are public, so I thought I'd cross post  
some interesting discussion regarding Adobe and SVG:

> The second reason is that the open web is core to a lot of what  
> Adobe does. Everything from tools like Dreamweaver to runtimes like  
> Adobe AIR count on a thriving, innovative open web community. I’m  
> especially excited by what Adobe AIR offers because we are able to  
> help drive open web adoption on the desktop by including  
> technologies like Webkit and Spider Monkey. Even now we’re looking  
> at ways we can incorporate more technologies (SVG, Canvas, etc) into  
> Adobe AIR so that developers can take advantage of it.

myself:

I'm not sure if this is a question you can answer, but if Adobe is  
considering adding SVG to Air, would it also consider allowing the  
Flash producer tool (forget its name) to be able to export SVG as well  
as SWF files?

> I’ll ask around. SVG in AIR is still in the discussion stage, and  
> even if it were added, I think the engineering work to get SVG  
> supported on par with what you could do in a SWF would make it a  
> tough sell. A lot of what is in SWF doesn’t map all that well to SVG.
>
> We’ve got SVG support in Illustrator, and that tool is becoming a  
> big part of design for the Flash Platform, so what I’d imagine is  
> that we’d work on making the SVG support in Illustrator rock solid.
>
> All theoretical, but hopefully that helps.

Myself:

Better SVG support in Illustrator would certainly be a big plus.  One  
of the problems I see for SVG currently is that, while one can export  
static files with a tool such as Illustrator or Inkscape (which  
probably has better support currently), there is no high quality tools  
for animated SVG, such as what the the Flash tool can do for SWF.

> I’m not totally sure that Flash would be the best tool for animated  
> SVG. There are obviously a lot of politics involved (unfortunately)  
> but that might be something we could put into Illustrator or  
> Fireworks down the road. I think that’s the best solution for  
> designers targeting the open web. I’ll keep my ears open on the  
> Creative Suite side and see what I hear.

At least of the two designers I know at Opera that are playing with  
SVG, their tool of choice is Fireworks, and I know many web designers  
love it as it is web optimised.  Getting Fireworks to support SVG  
would be a big win IMHO.

David Storey

Chief Web Opener / Product Manager, Opera Presto / Product Manager,  
Opera Dragonfly
W3C WG:  Mobile Web Best Practices / SVG Interest Group

Opera Software ASA, Oslo, Norway
Mobile: +47 94 22 02 32

Received on Monday, 9 March 2009 21:35:31 UTC