Re: SVG Mania and the Sematic Web

"Geoff Deering" <gdeering@acslink.net.au> wrote in message
news:NBBBJPNFCLNLAADCLFJBKEJGDOAA.gdeering@acslink.net.au...

> As SVG in now becoming installed in more and more devices, and is
native in
> Mozilla,

SVG is certainly not native in Mozilla, it's available in special mozilla
builds and is far from release quality.

> could we see the default document type on the web becoming .svg,
> given it's power and presentation?  I can see a lot of people wanting
to
> design like this.  I don't have a problem with it because it is XML
based.

That would be an absolute disaster for accessibility, SVG has very few
accessibility features and those that are available (like css) cannot be
used without rendering the content inaccessible.  SVG due to some
compromises in the design (such as "z-index" support) does not allow for
sensible grouping and description in the general case, and also it often
relies on position to give information yet provides no mechanism to
describe that position in a meaningful manner.  There's also problems
with lack of any non pointer based interaction.  There are many good
features though, and with metadata you can make the content accessible -
however, that's really just providing a metadata version of the document
and that works with all different document types.

> There is a side issue of dynamic SVG replacing dynamic HTML, especially
for
> pull down menus.  Does this have the same accessibility issues, or does
it
> overcome some or many of them.

It adds lots of new ones, whilst solving none from well authored dynamic
HTML, that is not the place for SVG,   SVG is about graphics semantics
not doing drop down menus etc.

Jim.

Received on Monday, 2 December 2002 06:24:00 UTC