Forget Flash, animated GIFs and boring JPGs

unleash the power of SVG

[lorax]

SVG is here and if you're not in the know - you had better get started. Light, fast, flexible and oh so powerful in the right hands.

The fact is that Flash, PDF, and other proprietary formats leave vast swathes of the vector graphics market untouched. They have left so many domains open for SVG because of the inherent limitations of proprietary (in the sense of corporate-controlled) binary formats. It is already clear that SVG will own those markets long before it gets close to replacing Flash and PDF in their core markets. In fact SVG is already a runaway success according to a much more important benchmark: it allows people to solve problems that were previously intractable.

Read more here. [xml.com]

[limbo]

:o Looks like a very interesting addition to our armoury.

I wonder how browsers will cope with this? can they already?

[edit_g]

I'll forget about flash, gifs and jpg's when the examples in that article work in my browser... ;)

[lorax]

There are actually 2 ways of generating SVG. One relies on a plug-in for your browser and the other is completely server-side.

The server-side version works with all visual browsers as the image generated is actually in one of the common file formats (GIF, JPG, PNG).

The SVG chess-game relies on the plug-in which, for obvious reasons, makes it less than useful. But, the power of this version comes in it's ability to render animation. So let's hope they resolve this issue soon.

While I was being a bit facetious about JPGs (though I suspect the day will come) I can see a day when server-side SVG delivery will become ubiquitous for simple graphics deliver.

Mapping and line art will be the first to use SVG widely and as the technology advances, the tools used to describe the image will become more sophisticated. Right now you pretty much need to be able to write code for a graphics library. An example would be PHP's gdlib. The more complex the image - the more advanced the code required to generate the image.

[korkus2000]

SVG has been around for a while and microsoft tried to implement its own version at one time. The best thing that I used microsoft's SVG was for charts and graphs. Creating those were a snap and they looked ultra slick.

I am not really going to look for standards with multimedia. Sure there's SMIL and SVG and a number of other alphabet soup standards, but Flash is supported now and has the functionality to blow these away. IMHO all of these standard formats need some more time in the oven.

[lorax]

>> but Flash is supported now and has the functionality to blow these away

En guard! ;)

Seriously, how can you be so sure? I know of people who still haven't installed the Flash plug-in. And as far as functioanality goes - I think SVG is better poised to rule interactive graphical environments than Flash or Shockwave could ever hope to be. Here's why.

Flash is based on proprietary code which must use internal procedural calls to produce interactivity with the UI and exchange data with objects outside the SWF file. SO the plugin receives the file and the file instructs the plugin to call/push data outside of itself.

SVG is expected to become a part of the browsers which means it's application is more global in scope. No plug-in = faster execution of instructions.

With SVG as it stands right now, the plugin receives the file AND all of the external data without additional calls because XML allows data from different sources to be woven together and delivered as one document. The plug-in simply runs the script.

And let's not forget that SVG is based on XML data and that opens up a whole world of new possibilities for interactive graphical applications. SVG has direct access to existing technologies like XML-RPC, RDF/RSS, XSLT, SOAP, and WDDX.

For a good side-by-side feature comparison visit carto.net [carto.net]

For a comparison of SMIL (animated XML) and Flash go to Streaming Media World [smw.internet.com].

Re: more time in the oven. I totally agree with you here.

[korkus2000]

What I really mean is that artists are not huge proponents of standards. Microsoft tried to pick up the SVG standard and run with it but it was the netscapes and other browsers that did not follow suit. I am one of the artists that liked and learned it. Unfortunetly there was just no support except for intranets.

I agree that if people could agree on a standard and fully implement it cross browser then lets go, but the reality so far is that proprietary formats are the only thing that will provide this need.

Flash vector capability is only one aspect of its overall power though. That is really where SVG is trying to tackle. Mostly where SVG can gobble up market Flash doesn't do a vary good job with like charts and graphs. Places where java applets have typically worked. I see SVG killing applets more than really dinting Flashes market.

With MX's ability to integrate XML, adobe's livemotion, and swift, I think Flash is going to move to SWF being a standard. I would love to have more tools in my toolbox, but I guess I am a little weary of the xml soup standards.

Another point is when will spiders, screen readers, text browsers be able to integrate these new technologies. Macromedia has really made a push to make SWF accessable, and SE are coming around to reading the format.

I just think the web is proprietary. Until browsers, SE, and all other readers make a real effort to apply standards we are left with proprietary formats that make real world solutions. Like I said I would love to have more weapons in my arsenal, but they just need time to sort it out.

All IMHO ;)