Re: FLASH: RE: FLASH's future (is: SVG)

[John Dowdell]

At 6:04 AM 2/28/99, Timothy Palmer-Benson wrote:

> ... I was alarmed to learn that the W3 or whatever it is called is not

> or has not adopted Flash for its new standards. What does this portend

> for Flash?


Ditto what David, John, and the rest of the gang said. Notes:


--  SWF is great for encapsulated interactive vector animations. But

there's also a need for simple static vector graphics which can be

described in an HTML editor (think flow charts, org charts, simple

diagrams). There are distinct sets of needs.


--  The World Wide Web Consortium published a set of requirements* for

Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) last year.

    Among these, the eventual SVG implementation should be able to be

written in a text editor, or by CGI scripts, and should be described in XML

conventions, should be integrated with the Document Object Model and

Cascading Style Sheets, should have predefined primitives such as

rectangles of given text-based dimension, should have HTML-based text

strings, should have text-based "rotation" and "scale" parameters in

addition to matrix math, more.

    As you can see, the set of needs here is slightly different from what

we-all need... we want (greatly!) optimized filesize, streaming, multiple

media support, advanced interactivity, protection from deconstruction,

display speed, predictability and backwards-compatibility for the public...

SWF and SVG would serve different purposes.

   * SVG Requirements: http://www.w3.org/TR/WD-SVG/reqts.html


--  Because SVG must be described in XML format, such files will be much

larger to download than what we're already used to. The tradeoff is that it

should be much easier to integrate formatted information from databases or

to create diagrams in office-type applications.


--  The SVG spec was published in Working Draft format in February 1999.

The final Recommendation may occur this summer or so. Once there's a final

spec, then browser manufacturers can start constructing against this

standard. After that, the public can begin migrating to SVG-compliant

browsers. As you can see, this imposes a very different dynamic on SVG use

than what we're already used to, today.

    (Note: Although some firms have announced that they "have SVG" today,

it might be prudent to hold off on pronouncements until SVG actually

exists.... ;-)



I'm looking forward to the final spec myself, and hope that its

implementation in browsers goes smoothly. This will offer all of us new

abilities, and Flash will have to work to complement and extend these

text-based features. Should be fun...! 8)


hth,

jd






John Dowdell, Macromedia Tech Support, San Francisco CA US

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