Afterstep 2.0 Beta Includes XML Graphics System 214
vaevictus writes "Afterstep just released its 2.0 Beta 1, after a long merge from its development branch. One of the most interesting new features is an XML-based graphics system, where any picture for any part of the WM can be a simple chunk of XML, which can do transformations, scaling, gradients and some other nice graphics mods. I've personally used this to cut my 1600x1200 image size from a 2.4mb PNG to a total of about 37kb. This leads to some very compact themes. If you're not familiar, AfterStep is one of the older WMs out there still in active development; all of you WindowMaker fans should check out the WM your WM branched off of, so long ago."
Not being familiar with this... (Score:5, Insightful)
SVG? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:XML Image format? (Score:1, Insightful)
seriously, wtf does XML have to do with a windowing system or any other type of rendering gizmo?
Re:XML Image format? (Score:3, Insightful)
wait, this sounds familiar... (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh, you mean like SVG?
I guess this could be justified if it were significantly lighter-weight than SVG. Otherwise, why not reuse?
Re:XSLT to convert to SVG (Score:2, Insightful)
Which raises the question - why didn't they use SVG?
Re:Hrm (Score:2, Insightful)
but i think a lot of the reason GNOME and KDE each have such a huge following is because they're very pleasant to look at
Not a flame.....but, I completely disagree. I think the reason that KDE and GNOME are so popular has everything to do with the fact that they are the default window managers in the most popular Linux distros (*cough*RedHat*cough*Suse*cough*). Another plus is that they bring that 'Windows'-ish feel, which new Linux converts crave......it gives them something somewhat familiar while investigating a whole new world (read: Linux/*BSD/your-free-unix-like-OS-of-choice)
Re:XML Image format? (Score:3, Insightful)
XML is 'supposed' to be a nice little data interchange format. It's not a data storage mechanism (because relational DBMSs are far, far superior) yet misguided people like this are trying to use it as one.
Converting XML to binary? Why go to all the trouble to run it through an XML parser etc. first if you're just going to send a binary file? Use a more efficient file format!
Re:XML Image format? (Score:3, Insightful)
Lots of people use GZIP encoding with XML data to make it suitable for sending over a network. Surprise, GZIP is a _BINARY_ format! And yet, it interoperates between systems very nicely. The page you are viewing was probably GZIP encoded too on the way to your browser. Most XML parsers will accept an GZIPped XML stream and recover the original content transparently. Binary data can be just as interoperable as text data, and hugely more efficient when done right.
XML is 'supposed' to be a nice little data interchange format. It's not a data storage mechanism (because relational DBMSs are far, far superior) yet misguided people like this are trying to use it as one.
Lots of 'misguided' people are using XML encoding for lots of purposes, such as word-processor documents. Do you propose that word-processor documents be stored and interchanged in a relational-database format? That's pretty bizarre.
Converting XML to binary? Why go to all the trouble to run it through an XML parser etc. first if you're just going to send a binary file? Use a more efficient file format!
The absurdity with the plethora of binary file formats is that people have kept reinventing the same things over and over again. These are the misguided ones. This situation is what gave rise to XML format in the first place: people were tired of inventing one-off formats that all required custom tools to use or edit or parse or transform or whatever. Imagine the flexibility of XML combined with the efficiency of binary encoding.