RE: SVG 1.2 Comment: vector effects

On Mon, 29 Nov 2004, Doug Schepers wrote:
>> 
>> With all due respect, I would feel more comfortable if the SVG 
>> specification was designed with simplicity in mind, rather than 
>> starting with everything and then only removing features if enough 
>> people complain.
> 
> With all due respect, I would be much more satisfied if features and 
> solutions we have been promised for several years now were finally 
> delivered. Vector Effects will let us solve our own problems, rather 
> than wait on a crippled featureset designed by committee. Also, as 
> someone who uses SVG regularly, the syntax seems very intuitive to me, 
> since it leverages the similarity to filter effects.

I appreciate that there is a demand for these features, don't get me 
wrong. My concern is that this demand isn't coming from Web authors. 
Indeed, the demand from authors targetting the "quotidian Web" (for lack 
of a better term) would be for open vector graphics of _any_ kind, since 
all that such authors have right now is Flash. Authors who have enough 
experience with SVG to be able to make feature requests almost be 
definition aren't authors targetting the Web that Web browsers are 
primarily concerned with.

As I've said several times recently, I have nothing against the vector 
graphics community having an open file exchange format, just like the 
technical writer community has an open file exchange format (DocBook). 
However, that isn't the level that Web browsers are targetting, and so the 
SVG working group needs to decide if SVG is in the role of exchange 
format, or if it is just a generic vector graphics language for the Web.


> That being said, your example is not particularly compelling. I can 
> already represent a circle as a square, and vice versa. [...]
> 
> But why would I do that? In HTML+CSS, you can make an 'h1' look like the 
> default layout for a 'p', or vice versa, including font-weight, 
> font-size, display, etc. That doesn't mean it's a good idea for an 
> author to do so, nor does it mean that CSS shouldn't allow those 
> properties to be manipulated, since they have very useful, legitimate 
> functions. 'clipPath' is very useful, and so will be Vector Effects.
>
> As I recall, you advocated earlier permitting sXBL to re-render SVG-NS 
> elements, which seems a far grosser affront to semantics and invitation 
> to abuse than the rather unlikely scenario you describe above.

My point was more that the vectorEffects feature was too powerful, rather 
than that the feature could let authors do something bad.

(And my point regarding XBL was that XBL shouldn't have arbitrary 
restrictions special-casing one namespace over others.)

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

Received on Monday, 29 November 2004 09:46:58 UTC