RE: Proposal: <star> element

@Stephen : What is the feasibility and likelihood of being able to get the data you are seeking? if both are low then the need for the data while it exists is moot. We must then analysis based on available data.

@Tab : I agree that the definition of "star" is currently loose but the standard that would be created could readily solve it.




________________________________
From: schenney@google.com [schenney@google.com] on behalf of Stephen Chenney [schenney@chromium.org]
Sent: Monday, April 14, 2014 1:09 PM
To: Tab Atkins Jr.
Cc: Rik Cabanier; www-svg@w3.org
Subject: Re: Proposal: <star> element

On Mon, Apr 14, 2014 at 2:47 PM, Tab Atkins Jr. <jackalmage@gmail.com<mailto:jackalmage@gmail.com>> wrote:
On Mon, Apr 14, 2014 at 11:41 AM, Rik Cabanier <cabanier@gmail.com<mailto:cabanier@gmail.com>> wrote:
> On Mon, Apr 14, 2014 at 10:59 AM, Tab Atkins Jr. <jackalmage@gmail.com<mailto:jackalmage@gmail.com>>
> wrote:
>> Private discussion with Philip has convinced me that adding a <star>
>> element (or a <polar> element, or any other particular instance of
>> something that's star-like and possibly does more) is probably not
>> worth it.  Stars happen, but they're not really common.
>
> I thought so too, but searching for "SVG images" brings up a lot of artwork
> that uses stars (and triangles which are also stars)
> In addition, applications such as Illustrator and Inkscape offer them as
> primitives alongside circles and rectangles and it's easy to find js
> libraries that support them (ie http://paperjs.org/reference/path/).

I could be convinced by arguments like this, though the definition of
what a "star" is is obviously a bit loose (as evidenced by the
multiple substantially different attempts to provide them).

>> Plus, the
>> bearing command, which I think *does* justify itself, makes generating
>> stars fairly easy.
>
>
> I don't see much value in the bearing command. Do you have any examples of
> drawing applications or popular js libraries that offer this?
> It is also more invasive as it impacts the already complex path command
> string. See http://www.w3.org/TR/SVG2/paths.html#PathDataLinetoCommands for
> all the commands that are impacted.

The bearing command is useless for a drawing application.  It makes
hand-authoring far easier, particularly when performing some actions
that are symmetrical about some axis.  Rather than doing trig to
create a pentagon, you can just do some simple middle-school geometry:

<path d="h10 b108 h10 b108 h10 b108 h10 z">

~TJ

I also am concerned about the bearing command due to the complexity it adds to path handling. As the most basic drawing primitive, we want path to be fast.

Looking to the future, I believe that most SVG will be generated by some other program, be it a javascript library, or a plotting package, or a vector drawing tool, or a custom visualization program. My sense is that we are already in that world, but nobody seems to have data to confirm it one way or the other.

The prevalence of stars in existing artwork is not enough. We also need to know whether or not someone hand-authored it along with the amount of path data needed to draw it. That's what would inform our benefit analysis.

Stephen.
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