[[css-shapes]] feedback

Hi all, it is always fascinating to hear of all the various activities going
on within W3C that might be of interest to folks doing graphical web things.
Sorry to jump in late to the discussions,  but I've recently been wrestling
with some of these issues in JavaScript (like text flow in polygons) and
only today became aware of your effort.

 

In the draft of Shapes at  , I note that the supported shapes 3.2.1 include
rather specialized syntax for rects and polygons and the like. Why not

a)      Just allow the SVG versions of these various basic shapes? That is,
instead of, for example,
rectangle([<length>|<percentage>][, [<length>|<percentage>]]
why not allow  the regular SVG syntax for a <rect>? 

b)      Arbitrary <path> elements to flow shape are harder what with all the
microsyntax of paths, but since all browsers support SVG anyhow (and in
particular, they all seem to know how to render paths) why not define text
flow for arbitrary paths? What I found a bit tricky in my implementation was
following the left and right sides of paths, but compared to the issue of
concavities (which you seem to be handling with the even-odd fill rule -
that can get a bit odd at times I'm sure) that seems relatively simple in
comparison.

 

Regards

David

PS I don't know how to subscribe to this group, so am not sure if my
comments will make it to the group, or if replies will make it to me.