- From: Ian Hickson <ian@hixie.ch>
- Date: Thu, 4 Nov 2004 03:19:57 +0000 (UTC)
- To: Denis Bohm <denis@fireflydesign.com>
- Cc: www-svg@w3.org
On Wed, 3 Nov 2004, Denis Bohm wrote:
> > > >
> > > > It seems bad to me to be requiring a lowest-common-denominator
> > > > algorithm for line breaking.
> > >
> > > This is because you don't care about graphical interoperability
> > > between user-agents. This is exactly why it's appropriate for the
> > > SVG WG (where this is extremely important) to define this.
> >
> > I do not understand why it is important for SVG rendering agents to
> > all have the same line breaking.
>
> That seems to be the whole issue with this long thread. SVG is
> presentation level - it is defined so that the output is consistent in
> all implementations. That is what SVG is all about. If you don't want
> presentation level then you need to use some other representation (and
> possibly a transformation into SVG to view it).
CSS is presentation-level too, it is also defined so that the output is
consistent in all implementations. But there is no reason for the
consistency to be taken as far as line breaking. Why would it matter if
one user saw:
The Springfield Nuclear
Power Plant is closed for
rennovation.
...and another saw:
The Springfield Nuclear
Power is closed
for rennovation.
...?
I don't mind specs being specific and defining details to ensure
interoperability, indeed I'm all for it. But there are cases where it
matters, and cases where it doesn't. The exact details of word-wrap are a
case where it really doesn't matter most of the time, and in the rare
cases where it does matter, you can use distinct <text> elements.
It matters if a circle gets stroked with 2px instead of 1px because that
might not match the thickness of another line, or might cause other
misalignments. Similarly in CSS it matters if two margins get collapsed or
don't get collapsed, because otherwise boxes that were intended to line up
might no longer line up. But none of that applies to text and where a
block of text might wrap.
--
Ian Hickson U+1047E )\._.,--....,'``. fL
http://ln.hixie.ch/ U+263A /, _.. \ _\ ;`._ ,.
Things that are impossible just take longer. `._.-(,_..'--(,_..'`-.;.'
Received on Thursday, 4 November 2004 03:20:00 UTC