Re: Lack of Forms Constructs in SVG

Here are my thoughts on this issue:

  HTML lacks conceptual integrity when it comes to things like forms.  In 
many ways HTML is a "presentation" language( if youll allow me to make this 
categorization ).  It is designed not to process data but to display data( 
as opposed to a procedural language like Perl ).  HTML forms cross this 
boundary of presentation and go into the realm of describing how data is to 
be processed( or sent over the wire in this case ).  Also in this case the 
idea of "forms" are *very* specific to a data interchange protocol: http.  
SVG, in my view is not intended to be anything more than a way of describing 
static and animated graphics.  Once we start supporting various data 
processing actions and locking into specific interchange protocols, we are 
begging SVG to turn into a lumbering beast( weighed down by incongruent and 
baroque features ).

-josh zeidner
  brooklyn media labs, llc.


>Like it or not (and I don't particularly like it)
>SVG is likely to become the replacement for HTML on
>commercial web pages, as it is a much better fit for
>the requirements of advertising copy.  However, the one
>commonly used feature of HTML that seems to be missing
>is forms.
>
>Whilst I'm sure that one could somehow mix HTML forms
>elements with SVG (although I have reservations about
>early, plug-in based, solutions) the result is likely to
>various ad hoc, cook book type solutions, bringing back the
>same sort of problems that arise as the result of trying to
>use HTML as a page description language.
>
>PDF, which I consider to be the main ancestor of SVG, does
>have a forms capability.
>
>I think, therefore, that the inevitable fate of SVG should
>be taken into account and forms included before people
>start working round the lack of them, or, failing that,
>a non-normative appendix should be included giving approved
>cook-book solutions for creating forms.
>--
>--------------------------- DISCLAIMER ---------------------------------
>Any views expressed in this message are those of the individual sender,
>except where the sender specifically states them to be the views of BTS.
>
>

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Received on Friday, 20 October 2000 10:19:39 UTC