Firefox 1.1 Plans Native SVG Support 415
Spy Hunter writes "The Scalable Vector Graphics format has yet to take off on the web, perhaps due to a small installed base of SVG-enabled browsers. That could soon change as the latest Firefox 1.1 nightly builds have started coming with native SVG support compiled in and enabled by default. If this feature makes into the Firefox 1.1 release (which is not certain, but likely, as the developers want it to happen) it will increase the number of web users who have an SVG renderer installed. But perhaps more interesting than that is the possibility of mixing SVG graphic elements directly into the markup of regular XHTML pages, freeing vector graphics from the small rectangle of a browser plugin and opening up a host of exciting new possibilities for web developers. This is enabled by the integration of SVG directly into the Gecko rendering engine, instead of as a browser plugin. With such a useful web developer feature available only in Firefox, could we soon start seeing websites asking their users to download Firefox to get the best browsing experience?"
Firefox only? not for long... (Score:5, Insightful)
No, because IE will adopt a slightly different version of SVG and by virtue of it already containing 80% of the market, will force firefox to display the IE-compatible SVG, and things will be the same as ever before.
Monopolies, y'know?
You know what's funny (Score:5, Insightful)
Excellent (Score:1, Insightful)
SVG Support... (Score:5, Insightful)
And you thought cyrillic characters were bad.
Re:failure to take off (Score:5, Insightful)
Fair point, however I'd say that no, Flash hasn't supplanted the role that SVG could perform, and there still is a huge void waiting to be filled.
The reality is that the web is largely full of static, raster graphics (most graphs, as a simple example, exist as tiny craptacularly printing, non-interactive GIFs) - most of which would be better served by interactive, "infinite resolution" vector graphics.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/msdnmag/issues/03/07/Sc
"only in Firefox" (Score:5, Insightful)
No.
First of all, it's also available in Opera 8.
Second of all, at the risk of sounding like a troll, people will simply find ways around using SVG until IE supports it
It's only OK if it's us. (Score:5, Insightful)
Adblock *.svg (Score:5, Insightful)
Sounds like a whole new annoying type of advertising coming our way.
Re:cool something new again! (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm all for there being a library of extentions we can add into firefox if we wish to.
I don't think stuffing lots of features into firefox is what would make IE users switch.
Developers dictating users' browsers? (Score:3, Insightful)
With the continual complaints I see about people irritated by sites that use features only supported by IE, and that cause the page to render incorrectly in other browsers, why would developers using Firefox-only features be any different or better?
No Firefox Only Sites, Please (Score:5, Insightful)
The keyword is best. Lets just hope some webmasters don't start doing what some IE designers have done, blocked out an entire website because of not using the correct browser. Most of the sites that say my Firefox is "not up-to-date as the latest Interenet Explorer" will render just fine, if they hadn't put up blockades to their content.
It's their loss.
Re:failure to take off (Score:4, Insightful)
I dunno; if this thing works without crashing my browser, hogging 100% of the system's CPU, or blasting irritating sounds (and if it's used for useful content and presentation instead of lame menus or "flash-only" styled pages), it might just take off.
Flash is disabled on this machine because it does exactly one of two things in a web page: 1) show an ad, or 2) replaces perfectly servicable text (or even image-based) links in menus and navigation widgets that just ends up slowing everything down. I've already loaded the page. I shouldn't have to wait for the menus to load, too, just so your cute logo can flicker or rotate or so your menus can do impressive, flashy transitions that slow things down even more.
"download Firefox to get the best browsing..." (Score:4, Insightful)
Sure, if the webmasters are fucking retards.
Think about it, if you use SVG all over your site and say "Download Firefox or you wont be able to view this site." the 9X% (I use 9X since no one agrees on numbers.) Internet Explorer users would simply hit the back button and go find somewhere else to get whatever they were wanting from your site.
The only case where that might be acceptable is maybe in a situation where there is only a few users or where you are the exclusive provider of information on a topic.
So yes, webmasters will start telling users that they have to use FF to view their website... if they're fucking retards.
ND
Don't fancy a Firefox-oriented brave new world (Score:2, Insightful)
Please noooooo! I use Konqueror for all my web browsing. It works for about 95% of the sites I want to visit - I don't want that number to go down
I think Konqueror supports SVG but I don't suppose it supports embedding it directly in XHTML.
OTOH, when the KDE port of Firefox is done (yes, there is one!) then I won't mind so much
Re:failure to take off (Score:5, Insightful)
I think his point was more along the lines that Flash lowered the incentive for anyone to rush to market with a really good SVG implementation.
Of course you are correct that full SVG support would be a really good thing for the web. I would go so far as to say it's the most significant advancement of design possibilities since the introduction of the TABLE element.
Re:SVG Support... (Score:5, Insightful)
Esentially, everything they do to make their spam less filterable makes it look less and less like legit mail. The result tends to be that it's either easier to filter or there's no difference at all (e.g., the use of a string of random dictionary words tends to have no effect, since the words are weighted neither 'spammy' nor 'not spammy').
Re:What is SVG? (Score:5, Insightful)
Or should we all assume that we all are super-smart and questions are stupid? If you think so, no wonder people hate lots of techies.
Re:Excellent (Score:3, Insightful)
News for you; nothing is a "reliable source" such that it shouldn't be questioned. Wikipedia provides the best starting point for research on the web.
Save the bandwidth! (Score:3, Insightful)
Sadly, SVG really wasn't adopted. I hope that its inclusion in Opera and Firefox will change all of that, because many websites that currently use images for a lot of their content could make things look better and take up less space with things like CSS2 and SVG.
Saving bandwidth is still important in these days of broadband and whatnot, because the more you cut down the amount of unnecessary stuff zapping across the 'net, the more cool stuff that really requires the bandwidth (like movies, music, and all that stuff "they've" been promising us since the 80's with "convergence") will be able to get through.
Combine the powerful client-stuff you can do with all these standards with server-side dynamic generation and you end up with a system that should be able to display any type of content with no problem.
Re:It's only OK if it's us. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Please: SVG Maps (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:And... the big news (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Firefox only? not for long... (Score:4, Insightful)
You mean VML [w3.org]? New to Internet Explorer 5! [microsoft.com]
Re:Adblock *.svg (Score:3, Insightful)
There isn't really much SVG can do to annoy you that can't already be done with liberal use of CSS and Javascript.
"Best viewed with" is bollocks. (Score:5, Insightful)
I bloody well hope not. If I do I'll know that the website(s) in question have been designed by idiots. As Tim Berners-Lee states in Technology Review, July 1996:
"Anyone who slaps a 'this page is best viewed with Browser X' label on a Web page appears to be yearning for the bad old days, before the Web, when you had very little chance of reading a document written on another computer, another word processor, or another network."
So any sites saying "best viewed with..." are run by idiots - whether that "browser X" be Firefox, IE, Safari, Konqueror or even Lynx etc. etc.
Websites should be written to standards so they can be viewed by users in the browser of their choice. This is especially true to allow access for disabled users. That's the whole fucking point of the web.
And it's another reason that having Flash only websites is the WORST thing you can do. A colleague of mine at work is visually impaired and has to use a 21" monitor at 640 by 480 with a high contrast scheme. He still has to read the text by putting his face about 10" from the screen and scanning across the monitor. Flash websites are totally inaccessible to him.
And every day the internet fills up with crappy flash covered apologies for web pages built by idiots, for idiots, Ho hum...
Re:It's only OK if it's us. (Score:3, Insightful)
With Firefox gaining popularity, we--the community--are in a unique position to guide the standards that may one day become commonplace.
If enough sites recommend Firefox/SVG, it would go a long way toward encouraging other browsers to support SVG--an *open* standard, putting us in a position again of not needing to recommend a browser and possibly knocking out a proprietary format or two in the process.
Re:And... the big news (Score:1, Insightful)
Wrong (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:failure to take off (Score:3, Insightful)
Graphic artists != UI designers
Re:It's only OK if it's us. (Score:2, Insightful)
Now, however, Mozilla/Firefox really is the only browser that needs to exist. It is fully open source, portable to any modern platform, and standards compliant.
The reason to have multiple browsers is for the competition to help keep everyone in line with standards compliance. But with the open source community in charge of Firefox, they will naturally want to push it in that direction, without a profit motive.
As long as the Mozilla Foundation doesn't take Firefox proprietary or do anything else similarly stupid, I think Firefox should be promoted to the max, and websites should be designed to take full advantage of Firefox-specific features.
Re:And... the big news (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:And... the big news (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:failure to take off (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:I would kill for SVG in schema (Score:1, Insightful)
Looks like you haven't worked enough. Practically all major db design tools (e.g. PowerDesigner) have provided this capability for years and years.
> SVG DB schema would be an excellent tool to
> have- go from a 30,000 ft view to a grass blade
> view with out having to load up different pages,
> or deal with a wall paper print out.
It will not help as much as you think. Paper print-out is better in many ways.
Re:failure to take off (Score:2, Insightful)
If you change "Flash" for "images" and go back 10 years in time, you'd get the exact same situation that images in HTML had to go through.
Re:You know what's funny (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:And... the big news (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Mixing SVG into XHTML: Standard? (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe. If the Mozilla foundation were a gigantic monopoly which seeked to break standards specifically for the purpose of creating compatibility problems with competing browsers in favor of their own proprietary alternative.
Wait. They're not a monopoly. They're implementing a standard and not breaking one. They're doing nothing proprietary.
Remember, it was Microsoft that coined the term "embrace and extend." Changes are not bad in and of themselves, but web browsers need to be interoperable and standards-compliant, so different browsers will render the same thing the same way. Copying IE's rendering to display those pages that are designed around IE is compatible with IE, but IE alone, and ultimately just gives Microsoft carte blanche to dictate the development of HTML. The Mozilla guys are doing it the right way here.
Re:failure to take off (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:It's only OK if it's us. (Score:5, Insightful)
It isn't the number of sites that matter, it is their success in reaching beyond the Slashdot demographic. Preaching to the choir gains you nothing.
SVG could become the Ogg Vorblis of graphic formats. It's out there, but arrived too late and no one much cares.
Re:"download Firefox to get the best browsing..." (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:SVG soon widely supported? (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm guessing Adobe won't be in any hurry to produce an update given that they now own Macromedia.
Flash, SVG, who cares (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm really not concered here with the reasons why.
But let me tell you what I see:
But, let's look in the other direction, Flash:
In short, I don't see a whole lot of excitement about Flash, except from one crowd: Artist and graphic designer types.
The point isn't whether my perceptions about Flash or SVG themselves are correct. The point is whether my perceptions of the communities around them are correct.
If designers and art types, and a handful of programmers are excited about Flash- okay, that's one thing.
But if most programmers and developers are excited about SVG, that's another thing entirely. Who writes the apps? Who writes the programming languages? Who writes the tools?
Devs have shown themselves not to be terribly excited about Flash. However, there's a lot of excitement around SVG.
So, you know- you put 2 and 2 together, and you come out with: SVG will be the one that busts the bubble. We won't be trapped in little boxes anymore.
Much of the software is already here. This thing has been in planning and development for years and years and yeras. So, we already have all these libraries, that are just being integrated into the respective platforms. So: We have every reason to believe this will work.
I don't know why Flash didn't work. I don't even have to know particularly why Flash didn't work. All I have to do is see is that SVG worked: It struck the chord the developers needed to play along with.
A really good thing. (Score:2, Insightful)
Of course SVG isn't all that new, but good support for it has been sorely lacking. Adobe's plugin is the best of a bad lot (ok I've only seen Corel's and IE's native support), and I can't imagine Adobe's gonna be pushing to fix up their's with the recent acquisition of Macromedia. On top of that, my Firefox doesn't seem to like the Adobe plugin much (actually crashes!).
SVG should be standard in browsers. Not having it should be like not having the ability to view jpegs. (And yes the "spamvertising" possibilities suck but at the risk of paraphrasing a certain someone, if we don't adopt SVG because of that, then the spammers have already won.)
Re:"Best viewed with" is bollocks. (Score:2, Insightful)
Websites should be written to standards so they can be viewed by users in the browser of their choice.
That would be fine if the browser the viewer is using actually supported the standards...
Re:"Best viewed with" is bollocks. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:And... the big news (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:"Best viewed with" is bollocks. (Score:3, Insightful)
Some of the web work I've done looks better in Moz or Safari because they have better support of CSS. I spent quite a bit of time making my main template appear nearly identical in IE 5, IE 6, IE for MacOS, Safari, Moz/FF, Opera, and recent versions of Konq. But it looks a little better on browsers that fully support CSS. The content's no different and it's all easily accessable, but it's a little better organized. It also works equally well on small large displays, font sizes, and text to speach adapters, although I do get dinged on the accessibility checks because I don't put alt tags on the four images that are on the page exclusively for visual flair.
Unless every browser is built on the exact same rendering system, content will appear slightly different between them. Naturally, it will look "best" on the browser favoured by the development team.
That said, you won't find any "best viewed in" strings on my site.
Re:"Best viewed with" is bollocks. (Score:3, Insightful)
OK.. writing websites to standards won't get you very far with IE (unless you're talking nested tables design. I'm not). Or more like, it often takes a lot of work to find a "standards" way of doing something that DOES work without IE completely F$#@ing it up. If you're trying to do nice clean HTML+CSS, the time wasted finding workarounds for IE's horrific rendering bugs is just staggering.
For commercial work, I might agree with you, that the site must work in IE, with all the bells and whistles.
But I've done non-profit/niche sites, that were perfectly functional and pretty in IE, but looked and performed better in browsers with better standards support. So we slapped a "Best in Firefox/Mozilla" blurb, to help promote it. Again, this is a 100% standards compliant site.
Anyway the point is, I think you're overgeneralizing, and equating "best viewed with" with proprietary, non-standard formats, which it doesn't have to be.
Re:Inline SVG in Internet Explorer with Adobe SVG (Score:3, Insightful)