WVG : The New Scalable Vector Graphics

jafro_svg writes "While the press has discussed Microsoft's upcoming 'Sparkle' as a potential Flash-killer - the technology arena on which Microsoft's new technology is having the most impact is SVG. SVG (now a W3 standard for 3 yeras) was itself billed as a Flash-killer some years ago, and speculation about how it might be accepted into the mainstream for developers (i.e. incorporated into IE) now seems inevitable -- you see, Sparkle's real name is WVG and is 90% identical to SVG." Jafro_svg also points out this online SVG tutorial.

Sparkle history

[Anonymous Coward]

Sparkle is a joint venture of Matsumura Fishworks and Tamaribuchi Heavy Manufacturing Concern.

Will Sparkle shine

[Infonaut]

the way Chrome [com.com] did? ;-)

Damn Microsoft!

[Temporal]

As usual, Microsoft ignores the standards and does its own thing. Why can't they be standards-compliant for once?

Wait a minute...

On a serious note, someone once submitted some art to an open source video game project I run in SVG format. I thought it was pretty neat that I could resize the image without losing visual quality, but I was rather put off by the size. The file just seemed way too big for the data it contained. On a whim, I opened it up in a text editor, and what did I find? DUM DUM DUUUMMMMM.... XML!

Arg! Why!? What's next, raster images in XML? I can see it now...

<rasterImage>
<pixel>
<color>
<red type="hexidecimalValue">FF</red>
<green type="hexidecimalValue">FF</red>
<blue type="hexidecimalValue">00</red>
</color>
</pixe l>
<pixel>
<color>
<red type="hexidecimalValue">FF</red>
<green type="hexidecimalValue">80</red>
<blue type="hexidecimalValue">80</red>
</color>
</pixe l>
...
</rasterImage>

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Why WVG is great.

[dj961]

WVG is exactly what the aging IE needs. With out incorporating new features Microsoft will be unable to keep up with their policy of releasing at least 1 brand new critical flaw once a year. Just imagine to power of SVG with 10% more bugs, added complexity, and lest we forget incompatibility with every other browser. WVG shows us that Microsoft can still continue to innovate by stealing other peoples ideas and branding them as their own.

Repeat of the same

[Anml4ixoye]

I posted this a long time ago, but somehow it is still relevant:

The Effects of a W3C SVG Standard

Positive: Flash plugin will eventually no longer be needed for vector graphics as a key set of vector standards will be integrated with browsers. Ensuring that fonts are on the users system will no longer be an issue. Font embedding can be standardized.

Negative: Netscape and IE will both bring "enhancements" to the base SVG models. Of course none of those "enhancements" will be present in BOTH browsers. IE will allow for basic SVG 3d shapes, though no applications will currently support the creation of those shapes. IE will also allow for very loose coding to create the SVG shapes. If you accidentally put a single co-ordinate set into your file, IE, instead of telling you that there is a stray point, will assume that you wanted to create a MSN logo and subsequent link to MSN.Com. Microsoft Word will support SVG export, including in the source file a bunch of code that noone has any bloody idea where it came from, what it is supposed to do, or how to get rid of it. Thirteen years later, Microsoft will take over the US Government and we will find out that the "miscellaneous code", has been stealing our personal information for years. Microsoft will call it "A bug". Netscape, on the other hand, encountering a stray co-ordinate pair, will assume that the "clean-coding" standards of the internet development community are going straight to hell in a hand basket and that the world is coming to an end. "That being the case," it will logically decide, "this poor bloke is about to meet his maker and doesn't need to be squandering his last few minutes with his peepers fixed on a computer monitor now does he? Best he be off to the local pub for a pint or two while he still has the chance". Netscape will them proceed to crash your operating system. Netscape will also do wonderful little tricks like incorrectly display circles as parallelograms, Render every font as 16 point Times New Roman, and completely leave out the bottom half of your document for some obscure reason that you will spend 13 weeks trying to track down before you finally come to the conclusion that "There really aren't that many Netscape users out there anyway". AOL will just compress the heck out of everything it encounters and render every SVG image as a Dot.

Insignificant: Someone somewhere on a UNIX machine will be writing Plain Text news articles about how SVG is the worst threat to web usability since the invention of JPEG compression. They will urge the development community to avoid SVG because compatibility will still not be standard across all computers. They themselves will be ample proof of this fact only because their 28.8k external modems will not facilitate the download of the newest version of Netscape (God forbid a UNIX user should install IE) and even if they could get it installed, their 16mhz 1987 computer wouldn't know how to run it. The general population will promptly ignore these articles as they click yet another accidentally generated MSN logo link, leaving the insecure author to return to Usenet and his IRC client.

I figured it would only be a matter of time before Microsoft did this. I normally try to stay out of the *bash Microsoft* conversations, but after dealing with all the problems we have with the Microsoft JVM, and then having this on top of it...ugh.

90 Percent SVG, huh?

[PourYourselfSomeTea]

That means the other 10% will break down like so...

• 5% obfuscating the namespace with ties to the .NET Framework
• 2% smart tags. These will make your WVG document "smart" -- that is, allow MS to rewrite part of your graphics that might offend them. I see penguins looking longingly out of windows in your future, Mr Graphic Designer!
• 1% "extensions" Like, it would be really cool if you got a new <wvg:clippy> tag that would pop up every time you opened an wvg document in I.E!
• 1.99% Buzzwords that make WVG sound like a revolutionary B2B 99.999% uptime .NET-aware DRM-enabled, secure techonology solution for "helping you reach your creative potential in today's competitive marketplace." These, of course, will all be patented and made freely available under an obscure license which will confuse early adopters into implementing them, hopefully putting them directly into the Linux kernel and opening up a brand new SCO-like can of legal worms! These will also make WVG documents playable ONLY in Windows Media Player
• 0.1% Security enhancements. Like ties to VBScript objects that can execute arbitrary code on your box.

Re:So...

[dimator]

I'll take a Microsoft standard, which at least is answerable to market forces; over stuff published by unimaginative committees anyday

It is to laugh! Unimaginative committees? Microsoft is damn near duping a standard created through the W3, and you call the committee unimaginative?

You're right, though. Who nees open standards and peer review, when there's a monopolist we can all follow like sheep.

yeah, that's good and all

[frogsarefriendly]

SVG (now a W3 standard for 3 yeras) was...
Did you mean years?
Suggestions:
years
eyras
ye ras
ye-ras
yer as
yer-as
teras
yeas
eras
ceras
yeara
eyra's
treas
yeats
terras
rras
wras
yea's
erase
tras
yeans
year's
yearns
ras
rears
yas
yes
areas
eyres

Yeah, rears, they meant rears.

Re:Is everyone really missing the point?

[prockcore]

This is no different than it being rendered in the future as a vector image in Longhorn.

Unless you have a bad ass lasershow in your house, you can't render anything as a vector. It'll still be bitmaps.

Enough with the MS bitching.

[Langley]

Let's move on to what really matters, some of this stuff is just pure comic gold!

Quote:
<Canvas ID="root" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/2003/xaml" Background="White">
<Path Data="M 100,200 C 100,25 400,350 400,175 H 280"
Stroke="DarkGoldenRod"
StrokeThickness="3"/>
</Canvas>