RE: Declarative animation limitations

Andrew is correct on at least three fronts. First, the SVG working group
does indeed pay close attention to the posts on this email list. Second,
some members of the working group occasionally take weekends off. Third,
some people will probably take until Wednesday to recover after the huge
push last week to get out the SVG 1.1 Proposed Recommendation, the SVG
Mobile Proposed Recommendation, and the first Working Draft of SVG 1.2.
 
Jon Ferraiolo
Adobe Systems, Inc.
 
-----Original Message-----
From: www-svg-request@w3.org [mailto:www-svg-request@w3.org] On Behalf
Of AndrewWatt2001@aol.com
Sent: Monday, November 18, 2002 1:17 AM
To: ksmrq@netscape.net; www-svg@w3.org
Subject: Re: Declarative animation limitations
 
In a message dated 18/11/2002 07:48:49 GMT Standard Time,
ksmrq@netscape.net writes:





AndrewWatt2001@aol.com wrote:
>You're welcome Ken. I took time to look at it primarily because I found

>your comments genuinely interesting. Although I wasn't immediately sure

>why you seemed so frustrated. :)

Thanks. As for the frustration, imagine you wanted to start a new car
and discovered the ignition switch was in the back seat.


LOL. I doubt if you can give me lessons in frustration. Imagine the new
car is the XForms model. Part of the spec suggests the ignition switch
is in the front seat, part suggests it is in the back seat and part
suggests that it may be stuck to the back of a camel in Timbuctoo. Then
when you ask which it is they don't/won't/can't tell you!! 





The documents on the web, via <http://www.w3.org/TR/SVG2Reqs/> and so
on, are brief and sketchy. Nothing I see there indicates an awareness
of, or attention to, the issue I am raising.


My reading of that is that the SVG WG is inviting specific ideas. So
give them clear, well-thought-out, well-expressed ideas. Ideally with a
clearly expressed use case.




The SMIL 2.0 REC is, most likely, the source of the problem. As I read
it, the design of spline animation is entirely focused on timing, with
no sense of the need for interpolants other than linear -- except for
animateMotion.


So the practical problem for the SVG WG is how to add greater animation
functionality without breaking what is already there. They will *have*
to work within that constraint. Can you express your wants list / wish
list in a way which doesn't break what already exists and works?



Alright, I promise not to use "obvious" in the mathematicians' sense. ;)


<grin/> Want to bet you won't be able to keep that promise? :) ... I
know you bright mathematical guys and what you're like. :)

<various snips>



Second, if indeed the facility does not exist, I believe SVG (perhaps
2.0) and SMIL should incorporate it. 


That's one approach. It may be that, in time (in 1.2 or 2.0??), that SVG
will draw its animation facilities from two modules - SMIL Animation
plus ANother module which has facilities (of the type that interest you)
which are of marginal or no relevance to SMIL.

If this will modularise cleanly (which I am not clever enough to be able
to work out at this time on a Monday morning) then you quite possibly
have an opportunity to input heavily into the thinking.

When it comes to stuff like this I am happy to leave it to others to
work out how the modularisation would actually work.

<snips which the SVG WG should probably best respond to>




And is anyone but the two of us paying attention to this thread?


Oh sure. But be kind to the guys on the WG. They may actually use the
weekend as a weekend and not be sad cases like thee and me! :) Not
everybody spends the weekend chained to their keyboard.

In particular these guys have just produced two Proposed Recommendations
for SVG 1.1 and SVG Mobile and a first Working Draft for SVG 1.2. They
might have gone off celebrating and not be conscious until about
Wednesday. :) ... Or they may just be too exhausted to remember where
the On switch for their computer is! :)

And also many of the other members of this mailing list may be spending
their weekend reading the 1,000 or so pages of the two Proposed
Recommendations and the Working Draft which came out on Friday rather
than following every post on a mailing list in real time. I can see why
many would prioritise their time in that way.

Regards

Andrew Watt