Re: [whatwg] Exploring new vocabularies for HTML

On Mar 25, 2008, at 08:29, Ian Hickson wrote:
>  3. Writing a document by hand, with inline diagrams imported from a
>     graphics package.
>     Priorities:
>      * Compatibility with existing graphics packages
>      * Resistance to errors (e.g. not brittle in the face of syntax  
> errors)
>      * Scriptable (retained-mode, with DOM support, without requiring
>        cross-frame scripting)
>      * Round-tripping (the ability to take image fragments from a  
> Web page
>        and edit them)
[...]
> Now, please, if I've missed something that you want to do, please  
> let me
> know as soon as possible. I intend to start working on solutions to  
> these
> problems tomorrow, and things that aren't on the list of problems will
> likely not be considered as constraints.

The point
  * Ease of implementation (are UAs willing to implement new formats?)
applies to graphics as well.

Your list missed these non-diagram graphics use cases:
  * Content-reinforcing contextual progressive-enhancement eye-candy  
(that should degrade particularly gracefully).
  * Creating Flash-like visually "high-impact" brand marketing sites  
with openly-specified formats (and in a search engine-friendly way).

> In particular, people seemed to jump to solutions that the above  
> problems
> don't imply.

  * DOM-level consistency with XHTML+SVG+MathML for script reusability.
  * Straight-forward conversion to XHTML+SVG+MathML so that sites may  
opt to programmatically convert to XHTML+SVG+MathML for legacy  
browsers (the browsers that are now current) without undue software  
engineering hardship.

-- 
Henri Sivonen
hsivonen@iki.fi
http://hsivonen.iki.fi/

Received on Tuesday, 25 March 2008 08:04:07 UTC