Re: Flowing text in SVG2

I think, if one already has a program, that has the capability
to fill a rectangle with text (XHTML-style), it is not much more
difficult to fill an arbitrary convex shape with some text.
The main problem is what happens, if there is more text as
area to fill, but this can appear for XHTML+CSS as well.
non-convex shape are slightly more difficult, but still a 
solvable problem.
(To warp glyph groups to fit exactly into an area is maybe 
much more complex and it a different task.)

There is already a minimalistic simulation using CSS
to adjust the text to a shape, see here:
http://meyerweb.com/eric/css/edge/raggedfloat/demo.html
Obviously to get this with SVG one has to count and
position glyphs manually today - some parts of the show
are easier in SVG to manage, some are more difficult.

If one has a monospace font and a shape with known 
parametrisation, it should be no big problem to solve the
problem with a script language like PHP as well.
And as long as SVG does not provide such feature, 
one has to do it in such a way even for more complex
shapes, if one needs it.
Therefore for each use case each author has to reinvent
the wheel here so solve detail problems like positioning of
each glyph to get something like CSS:text-align: justify
for such a shape or maybe to estimate glyph area sizes
and shape area size to get the font-size scaled in such 
a way, that a text fits into the shape.

Another method is to use an arbitrary tool to create the
arranged text as path/shape construct, exporting only
this path to the SVG document and no text.
The advantage is, that one can earn money with such
a tool, if one does not tell other people, how it exactly
works ;o)

About accessibility: Obviously if an author can simply
put the complete text inside one element and the SVG
viewer does the job to arrange everything inside a shape,
is more accessible as the current method, that authors
use no text at all and present everything as an arbitrary
shape construct, because such a feature is missing and
additionally due to bugs and gaps in viewers there is no 
control with SVG fonts. 
But even this can be simply managed with already existing
SVG versions: Simply put the text additionally into a desc element.

If we want SVG viewers to solve non trivial use cases, such
a feature can be quite important.
If there is more desire to assist tool programers and software
licence advocates, it is much better not to provide such 
features for free ;o)


Olaf

Received on Monday, 22 April 2013 14:03:44 UTC