Re: SVG 1.2 Comment: 4 Flowing text and graphics

"David Woolley" <david@djwhome.demon.co.uk> wrote in message 
news:200411060917.iA69HLN01361@djwhome.demon.co.uk...
>
>> which case the text is just gone.  In a graphic there is a very
>> big difference between two lines of text and three, this isn't
>
> If it matters, the wrapping should be done server side.  The only
> real point in allowing client side wrapping is that it allows the
> client to wrap differently, to fit with local constraints, e.g.
> a limited choice of fonts or a user that needs larger fonts.

The reason authors want it, is because doing it "server side" is an 
extremely difficult job.  If it can be specified on the client, to give a 
consistent, reliable result, then it should be, it's solving an incredibly 
important problem.

Server-side text-flow is very, very hard, none of the popular server side 
frameworks have any font-metrics capability, so you have to do everything 
yourself, as there seems to be a solution that can work consistently between 
UA's it should be used.   Especially as it allows text to be in contigous 
elements, increasing the ease AT's can extract the data:

Consider:
<text>I<tspan>voted</tspan><tspan>Bush</tspan></text>
and
<flowText>I voted Kerry</flowText>

In the first, you've lost the whitespace between words, whilst it's fine in 
the above example, what happens if there was also some additional styling on 
characters, it's still in a single text element, but there's no reason why 
it should be if you're wrapping it in the server.

> If the issue is animation, then you need to look into better ways of
> describing the animation, especially where objects can suffer step moves.

even exploring the entire parameter space is a lot simpler than actually 
managing the movement of each character.  The Egg Timer which you may have 
seen is an example, it doesn't care about overflowing out the bottom, all 
that really matters is the initial constraint that it fits in the timer.

>>      This is a good thing, to a point, but when renderers produce
>> results that diverge too much artists will stop using it and will
>
> Personally, I find art gets in the way of using web sites.

Yep, me too, but I realise they're are other people out there, many of who 
actively prefer the attractive.

Jim.

Received on Saturday, 6 November 2004 11:46:26 UTC