Re: SVG in HTML (was: Minutes, SVG WG Brussels f2f day 4 (Monday))

On Wed, Jun 2, 2010 at 10:35 AM, Doug Schepers <schepers@w3.org> wrote:

> For their SVG and X/HTML implementation, Patrick casually mentioned that
> the IE Team considered (but did not implement) mixed-language cases like:
>
> <div>
>  <p>This is a paragraph.</p>
>  <circle cx="75" cy="25" r="20" fill="orange" stroke="red" />
>  <p>Did the circle above render?</p>
> </div>
>
> and
>
> <g>
>  <rect x="5" y="55" width="40" height="40" fill="orange" stroke="blue" />
>  <p>This is some HTML text without a foreignObject parent.</p>
>  <video .../>
>  <circle cx="75" cy="25" r="20" fill="orange" stroke="red" />
> </g>
>
> These are cases that a reasonable person might try to do... that is,
> interleave SVG and HTML without the roots or special container elements.
>  So, my open question was, how firm is the existing behavior in HTML5?
>  Shipping browser implementations restrict how much can be changed (assuming
> that any changes are required at all).
>

I don't think shipping an HTML5-spec parser is going to constrain us from
supporting stuff like the above as a future extension. The real constraints
are existing content and obvious spec issues. For example, the SVG tags that
have the same names as HTML tags can't be disambiguated outside an <svg>
container. We may find significant tag-soup HTML containing tags that have
the same names as SVG tags, where interpreting them as SVG breaks the page.

Rob
-- 
"He was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are
healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his
own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all." [Isaiah
53:5-6]