Re: Set circle radius using CSS

On 9/16/05, David Woolley <david@djwhome.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> 
> > Moreover, I would personally discourage you from using CSS with SVG at all,
> > if you can help it. CSS is not required for an implementation, it's not used
> 
> My impression is that CSS support was originally proposed as part of the
> token compliance to W3C accessibility requirements; it allows the user
> some ability to make pages more easily readable when they have colour and
> other visiou defects, but currently there doesn't seem any serious
> interest in accessibilty.

   I think you're short changing the SVG working group with these
words.  I can tell you first hand that accessibility has been taken
very seriously in the design of SVG.  Being a scalable and
transformable XML graphics format SVG may be the most accessible
graphics standard that exists even without CSS support.

   When the decision to incorporate styling as XML attributes was made
the group debated for months, sometimes hotly, over how styling should
be incorporated.  XML attributes won out because SVG is an XML grammar
and requiring a CSS parser raised the bar for implementation.  This is
particularly true for mobile devices that have to make tough
implementation decisions when tackling a complex format like SVG.  As
it stands 3GPP group complained that SVG tiny was too big.  If CSS had
been a requirement Flash would have won out as the graphics format for
mobile devices.  I'm not a Flash expert, but I don't think that it's
stylable.

   I'm sure experience will show whether or not CSS should be the
styling choice for SVG, and if it is then it will be incorporated into
user agents, if not then other means will become the standard.  XSL is
available and a tool for styling all kinds of XML.  Other styling
mechanisms are emerging.  This is one of the strengths of the format,
it's XML so it benefits from all of the tools available for processing
XML without putting any extra burden on implementors.

  SVG acceptance by the industry is dependant upon implementors
creating user agents to render the format.  Without implementation SVG
becomes little more than an academic exercise.  Implementation is
moving forward, but not rapidly, and I think this is because the
format is a little too complex.

    I assure you that in the design of SVG, accessibility was not
treated in the offhand manner you imply.

-- 
Cheers!
Rick

Received on Friday, 16 September 2005 22:05:50 UTC