Re: SVG fonts: [ was RE: minutes, SVG WG TPAC F2F 2014, day 2]

Oh shait,..

So the only SVG object that does not have to be declared in the DOM for  
every instance gets removed? Because Opera now uses the same crappy  
implementation for SVG as Chrome does.. right.. I still use Opera 12.16  
exactly for that reason. It has the only browser engine that actually does  
a good job at SVG and is now being discontinued. Oh really,.. ever tried  
to use external files with <use> lately?

So how am I supposed to manipulate characters from Opentype et all in an  
understandable manner? Convert them all into symbols and then script them  
back to replace the font characters? Is there a javascript library that I  
can use to support SVG fonts?

How can I incorporate Opentype fonts and all the other stuff into my SVG  
file if I'd like it to be standalone? UUencode it? If that is the case I  
propose something like a SVGp (SVG project) file type, that allows you to  
just zip everything into a single file, so I don't have to keep thinking  
about where did what go.  That it sort of defeats the whole notion of  
being able to easily share information over the internet in a ASCII  
format, hardly matters anymore it seems. DRM will rule anyway, so why not  
cater for that.

Just do a mashup of standards to get the desired effect. HTML code to get  
something into a flow, CSS to add the browser specific implementation of  
something using some unintelligible pile of mnemonic code barf to fix the  
holes in the standards and define how the graphics should look like in a  
context that is as far removed from graphics as possible. It has been my  
pride and joy to have had to engineer my web graphics for the past 20  
years rather than just draw them. It's like coding postscript in the 70's,  
40 years later.

Who needs fonts anyway. Just convert you headlines into paths and keep  
using the crappy HTML code typesetting to maintain that level of uglyness  
we've all become accustomed to. You can just stick in the old code with  
some foreign object if you need to be uncreative. Improving the kerning  
for some not so professionally and well formed font can be done in  
Fontforge too. CC:fonts.. hmm,.. yeah, but not in SVG flavour.

There is plenty of good work done in the SVG workgroup, but removing  
features for the sake of getting everyone to completely support  
recommended standards is ludicrous. This should be about setting what is  
possible and desirable, not what is currently being supported. If someone  
finds the compelling use case, supports the standard and starts making a  
buck with it, the rest of the sheep will follow.

Jelle

Received on Friday, 15 November 2013 20:41:23 UTC