Re: SVG Fonts [...]

Patrick Dengler:
>
> As mentioned previously, when we look at the future of SVG, especially as
> it relates to HTML, in order to succeed at delivering the real "vector
> graphic" core values to the web, I submit we must let go of some of these,
> in my mind, edge cases.  It took six years (?) to push out SVG 1.1 2nd
> edition into almost editors rec. There is a high cost to every module:
> testing, writing, implementing, maintaining.  Any area where we in the SVG
> spec can trim back and focus on the primary use cases for SVG, I see as an
> opportunity.  And note, that Chris from the working group didn't propose to
> eliminate the Fonts module, but rather make it optional.  Essentially,
> instead of having the SVG Working Group define the expected standards (as
> in the previous approach of Tiny, Basic and Full), the intent was to allow
> customer demand drive features. As far as I know, no vendor has implemented
> SVG Fonts in full, and there are interoperability issues.  SVG Fonts are
> useful for devices, and other scenarios.  I would love for someone to point
> me to more than 100 web pages that use them.

Funny question ;o)
Do you know ad hoc within a minute for example hundred different web projects
using the invalid notation from microsoft for the filter property
(I mean not correct usage as defined in SVG, but the 'definition'
that is available somewhere on a webpage of microsoft ;o)?

Do you know ad hoc within a minute hundred web-pages using the
microsoft interpretation of SMIL+HTML?

Even if not - I think, at least SMIL+XHTML would be great to
have for many authors, if that would be available with the usual
browsers. Not sure about the invalid filter usage, however ;o)

>
> This same issue goes back to other features such as animations for example.

At least I have on my own PHP scripts creating practically an infinite number
of different non-trivial/non-testing SVG outputs including animation.
These are hundreds of scripts in my art gallery, just produced by me within
the last 6 years, creating an almost infinite output - does this count as
something similar to 100 web pages?

I can spread them over different servers if this helps and I have a larger
amount of animation samples at wikibooks.org ... ;o)

Because already my own work goes to infinity - I never tried to
count finite productions of other authors. 
Typically I have learned to count on my own ;o)


And I had discussions with several authors in the past years.
They would have liked to use animated SVGs, yes if it would
just work in the other usual suspects as Firefox and MSIE,
not only in Opera and nowadays in Safari.
Maybe some of them would have liked to see some 
standalone SVG documents in goggle-chrome - unfortunately
this does not work at all.
Several would have liked to see some IFS (iterated functions systems)
in WebKit in general, but this one is to lazy to display SVG documents
with more than a few use-elements.

I think, one cannot expect, that many authors will use SVG today
at all, just because the support in the usual viewers is still tooooo
bad ...

There is still a lot to do, until a larger amount of authors will
trust in standard capabilities of larger companies like microsoft
or apple - and larger gaps in viewers and endless discussions around
these gaps will not really help them to believe ;o)
They understand, that it takes time to complete, 5 or 10 years starting
from the first recommendation, but after waiting such a long time,
finally it should work completely and not just what some implementors
like - this is nothing, that is reliable for authors, even worse, if the taste 
of implementors is different among each other and different from authors.
Most of them will not even start to publish documents, before implementations
are more or less done.
  
I think, these 100 webpage questions corrupted already the
efforts to improve (X)HTML within HTML5. 
Does'nt quality count much more than quantity?
Just think about astrophysics - dark energy and dark matter and 
maybe plasma in stars is really what matters with more than 
99.999...percent, not this tiny amount of chemistry dirt called planets 
like our earth, if we really have to believe, that quantity matters ;o)
Personally I do not have anything against dark energy or dark
matter, as long as it does not prevent that I can get my milk and 
muesli in the morning ;o)
And if they ever start to prevent this, it's time for a new big bang ;o)


Olaf

Received on Thursday, 3 June 2010 16:41:57 UTC