RE: [svg-developers] Re: Z index?

Sorry for the cross-posting, but I think this should go to the W3C WG
too, although the background of this discussion is probably not
sufficient, everyone can have a quick look at an outcome of it.

> Robin Berjon wrote:
> 
> > I may just be thinking out loud here, but in order to 
> conciliate the axiom
> > listed above with the possibility or z ordering, couldn't 
> we create some CSS
> > properties along the lines of: z-append-to: url(#otherElement),
> > z-insert-before: url(#behindElement), etc. ? These would 
> make the element
> > behave (z-wise) as if it were somewhere else in the tree, 
> but without
> > actually moving it around (hence the names based on the 
> corresponding DOM
> > methods). Wouldn't that allow us to keep the current functioning and
> > consistency of the model, without the unavoidable downsides 
> of destructuring
> > the document ? If need be, there could be a few other similar
> Chris Lilley wrote:
> 
> Yes, that is an interesting approach and would certainly deal 
> with some
> of the problems of merely adopting the CSS2 z-index property.
> 
> > I'm sure there are issues with this approach, provided it's 
> feasible at all.
> > I'm just looking for a solution to the present quandary.
> 
> I will pass on your suggestion to the working group.

Excellent stuff.

I think z-index should really be in SVG 1.1. I know it wasn't in the
requirements, but I really think SVG 1.1 would be a bit of a miss it did
not add support for crucial features missing from SVG 1.0. To be quite
honest, I am not really looking forward to SVG 2.0 and would very much
prefer to see this sort fo things adressed in SVG 1.1. The thing I
anticipate is that SVG 2.0 will not really contain features beneficient
enough for the most important masses of users and that in the end it
will bloat the language feature-wise and make implementations even
harder to come up with. Also, SVG 2.0 seems too far away for me, and I
need z-index "now" (well, modulo a year), as I feel others do. I really
think with modularization, basic text-wrapping and z-index (plus a few
other things that's already in there), SVG 1.1 could be the definite
vector graphics spec, at least for a few years.

Antoine

Received on Sunday, 25 November 2001 07:51:06 UTC