SVG12: attributeType="XML" should be recommended

Dear Scalable Vector Graphics Working Group,

  http://www.w3.org/TR/2005/WD-SVGMobile12-20051207/animate.html does
not currently describe specification of attributeType="XML" when the
target attribute is an XML attribute for which a CSS property of the
same name is defined by a W3C Technical Report as recommended. This
implies that there is no requirement on authoring tools to ensure that
content specifies this attribute by default.

I am concerned that this encourages authors to rely on the default
behavior of 'auto' which will cause problems when SVG content is pro-
cessed in implementations that implement properties of those names.
This will then likely encourage implementers to implement non-com-
pliant behavior for standalone documents, and cause content to break
or behave in unexpected ways when used in compound document scenarios.

I therefore think specification of attributeType="XML" should be 
described as recommended by the specification, and the importance of
doing so be highlighted. Please change the draft to this effect.

I note that a better way to address this problem might be to define
the value 'auto' in terms of which type is more relevant to the given
target, e.g., if an attribute of the name applies to the target, and
if there is a property of the same name but it does not apply to the
element in terms of directly observable behavior, the target is the
attribute nevertheless, but I understand that this would be a change
to SMIL and thus out of scope of SVG Tiny 1.2. If, however, the SVG
Working Group coordinates with the SYMM and CSS Working Groups and
concludes that this is a better way to address the problem, that
would address my concern aswell.

regards,
-- 
Björn Höhrmann · mailto:bjoern@hoehrmann.de · http://bjoern.hoehrmann.de
Weinh. Str. 22 · Telefon: +49(0)621/4309674 · http://www.bjoernsworld.de
68309 Mannheim · PGP Pub. KeyID: 0xA4357E78 · http://www.websitedev.de/

Received on Saturday, 18 March 2006 23:15:25 UTC