Re: SVG and MathML in text/html

This is an email copy of a comment posted at 
http://intertwingly.net/blog/2008/03/07/Design-By-Attrition#c1205078911
(reformatted and lightly edited for email)

Ian Hickson wrote:
> My impression, for what it’s worth, is that what you describe
> isn’t what Sam is asking for.

I’ll enthusiastically echo Ian’s comment that “That’s a hugely useful 
step in the right direction, thanks.”.  I’ll add that that would be 
sufficient to get an only slightly modified version of the test cases 
mentioned in this comment[1] and this one[2] to work.  It also would 
provide useful input to those who are continuing to evolve namespaces 
such as MathML, as well as pave the road for future extensions.

Ideally, it would be nice if this work could be done in time to produce 
useful feedback to Microsoft w.r.t. the recent IE8 beta.  I realize that 
that might be a bit much to ask; but it could be important factor in 
containing the damage that Microsoft’s currently proposed limitations 
will have, if these limitations are allowed to become a legacy that must 
be dealt with.

Three comments on Henri’s analysis:

 > Establishing a pseudo-XML parsing scope for <svg> and math.

IE8’s approach seems to be “establish a pseudo-XML parsing scope for 
unknown elements which contain an attribute named xmlns that happens to 
match a list of known values”, where the list of known values may vary 
by user agent or installation.  IMHO, that approach merits exploration.

Secondly, if you look at a typical inkscape produced document[3], you 
will see a number of other namespaces defined and used.  At a minimum, 
such should cause no harm.  It would also be nice if such elements were 
not to inhibit the potential future evolution of SVG.

Finally, I’d like to echo Henri’s comment on CDATA.  Based on your 
feedback (I now forget where, perhaps on IRC?), I added CDATA into my 
figures here[4] in order to ensure that this text does not appear in 
browsers that do not support XHTML+SVG.

- Sam Ruby

[1] http://intertwingly.net/blog/2008/03/07/Design-By-Attrition#c1204911544
[2] http://intertwingly.net/blog/2008/03/07/Design-By-Attrition#c1204914768
[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image_talk:Bart-logo.svg
[4] http://www.intertwingly.net/blog/2006/12/01/The-White-Pebble

Received on Sunday, 9 March 2008 18:55:00 UTC