Re: Embed multiple SVG objects in HTML-type table?

Mike,

At 04:35 PM 2/20/00 -0700, you wrote:
>I have searched the archives of this forum, but I am unable to
>find the answer. I want to put SVG graphs--dozens of them--(bar
>charts or line graphs) into cells of an HTML-type table. I think
>it may be possible to generate a single XML file with an <svg>
>and </svg> tag pair for each graph. But I am unable to find the
>right header and trailer tags to get my browser to recognize both
>SVG and HTML (XML?).

Current browsers don't recognize the SVG tag or any other non-HTML tag.
XML-savvy browsers in the future might be able to deal with unrecognized
tags, or at least well-known non-HTML tags such as <svg>.

>
>For me, the promise of SVG is doing just this: putting lots of
>small graphs into a normal ASCII hypertext file. Doing the same
>thing with raster files creates a file management and space
>consumption problem. The ability for a single program (such as
>C++, Perl, or my favorite, SAS) to crank out mixed text and
>graphics in a single, text-encoded file will take us to a new
>frontier in data visualization. "Investigations" of a computer
>performance, financial, or other numerical anomaly can be reduced
>to just a few mouse clicks. The need to laboriously generate
>large numbers of separate files containing plots, histograms, and
>so forth, to support an investigation will be dramatically
>reduced.

I believe the W3C is creating specifications that will allow your desired
scenario to play itself out. But we have to wait for industry to implement
these specifications before the above scenario (i.e., XHTML with SVG
inside) can actually happen.

Right now, the only scenario I can see for achieving many graphs all within
the same file would be to generate one large SVG file containing SVG text
and SVG graphics. The obvious disadvantage of this is that you have no
textwrap/reflow since SVG only supports single-line text.

There is also the 'data:' protocol for embedding small files directly
inside of big files (http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2397.txt), such as
embedding SVG files directly within HTML files. I have no idea whether
existing browsers support this protocol, particularly whether they support
this with the <embed> or <object> elements, which would be necessary since
current browsers only support SVG via the <embed> or <object> elements.

Jon Ferraiolo
SVG Editor
Adobe Systems Incorporated

Received on Wednesday, 23 February 2000 19:48:34 UTC