Re: Promoting more SVG attributes into properties

> When SVG adopted CSS, they drew a
> different line, decided that "geometry" was content and the rest was
> style.  This leads to a weird disconnect when an author used to one
> tries to use the other - they're used to being able to use CSS to do a
> lot of painting-level things, like add decorations and border and what
> have you, which in SVG stray into the "geometry" category.  Since many
> more authors are HTML/CSS users, it makes sense to move closer to
> their intuition.
>

So, that's exactly it : my definition of CSS is outdated :)

AFAIK,
the T in hTml means Text.
the G in svG means Graphics.
and the first S in cSs means Style.

It seemed pretty clear to me.

I understand that some html+css authors think that css contains everything
that is visual. But is it a reason to give up telling them it's more
"everything that makes things beautiful" ?
Maybe some people don't get what "style" or "decoration" actually mean.
Sure, some draw logos with empty <div>'s and CSS :)
But is it a reason to redefine the core purpose of css ?
As CSS has turned into just another syntax to define properties, you should
rename it to CAP for Cascading Application of Properties. ;)


it means
>
that a robot can reasonably get the meaning of the document without
>
having to do much-more-difficult visual analysis. Under this
>
rationale, SVG's division doesn't make as much sense


Indeed, it is an accessibility problem. But think about other consumers
than text indexing robots.
I'm pretty sure that, without sight, it is definitely easier to understand
the meaning of a vector picture than a raster.
For example, if I dream of a device capable of rendering a web page in
braille, it is imaginable to draw the vector graphics into some sort of
bas-relief.
But if you permit such things as <circle id="eye"/>, it means the "style
sheets" cannot be ignored to understand the picture, and it should be
parsed and interpreted only to read the few properties you are about to
promote.

Accessibilities are some things difficult for us developers. Because we
have to think about other ways than ours to access the data. And by
definition these are hidden to us.
I have some colleague that still don't really understand why they should
put alt attribute on their images, and they find it tiresome. But they do
it, because the spec says so.

So don't give up on all your ideals. Be brave, and create clean specs
despite the ill-informed complaints !
:)