RE: SVG 1.2 Comment: Detailed last call comments (all chapters)

On Mon, 1 Nov 2004, Doug Schepers wrote:
> 
> Are you saying that sXBL is not a good use of SVG? That creating a GUI 
> using a guiML rendered in SVG is a bad idea? I doubt that's what you 
> mean, but that's what it sounds like.

Yes, I am saying that. It would be very bad for any unknown XML language 
to be sent over the Web -- sXBL doesn't change that.


> The semantics would come from the domain-specific XML; this in turn 
> would lead to accessiblity (when coupled with SVG1.2's new focus 
> attributes). In fact, this would be a very good accessiblity case.

Using a language that was well-known (e.g. one that was a W3C 
Recommendation, such as XForms) would mean that the content had semantics. 
Using a language that is known only to the sender, and that the user's Web 
browser has no build-in support for, would lead to very _poor_ 
accessibility. sXBL can't add semantics any more than CSS can.

In any case, using SVG for user interfaces seems like a misuse of SVG, 
since SVG is a graphics language, not a user interface language. A user 
interface language needs to be usable in any context -- high definition 
widescreen video output, low-resolution small screen handheld devices, 
speech-based user agents, braille displays, TVs, to name but a few. 

XHTML2+XForms, for example, is capable of being fully usable in such 
diverse environments, and in fact is so usable by default (it's harder to 
make XHTML2+XForms documents unusable in such contexts than it is to make 
them usable). HTML4 with the extensions being developed by WHATWG is 
another example of a device-independent language for Web Applications that 
can be styled and used in multiple scenarios like that (although less so).

-- 
Ian Hickson               U+1047E                )\._.,--....,'``.    fL
http://ln.hixie.ch/       U+263A                /,   _.. \   _\  ;`._ ,.
Things that are impossible just take longer.   `._.-(,_..'--(,_..'`-.;.'

Received on Thursday, 4 November 2004 01:19:42 UTC