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January 26, 2006

Google SVG use

Google SVG use: Earlier this week Google released a study of how many web pages were constructed, and displayed the results in SVG. There was discussion at Slashdot and other places, but on Evolt's mailing list, Dejan Kozina described viewing tests in a variety of SVG-supporting environments. (Summary: SVG ain't "SVG", you've got to specify the implementation.) Max Schwanekamp had more info on how the decision was made. For me, this is the key issue behind most of the Microsoft Expression discussions this week -- where does the stuff actually work, what costs do your audience have to pay to view it? Focusing on the file formats is nice, but what's the actual engine which renders your work in each of the various viewing environments?

Posted by John Dowdell at January 26, 2006 05:17 PM

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Tracked on January 30, 2006 03:47 AM

Comments

John,

Ah, I had an inkling that's what the motivation was, thanks for the link. But pretty poor way to endorse a technology, I say. Constrain your readership so that you can find some bugs in browser?

In my experiments, it is possible to deploy an SVG solution that works in both IE+ASV, Firefox+ASV, Firefox 1.5, Opera 8.5 (as long as you don't have any interactivity) and Opera 9 (TP1). But to do still requires some workarounds. Safari nightly builds have SVG support now, but I don't have the luxury of testing on that.

I will concede that at this stage of the game, SVG is still a rough science that requires careful testing across implementations. It's maturing, but slowly.

Thanks,
Jeff

Posted by: Jeff Schiller at January 26, 2006 06:47 PM

Thanks, Jeff. I respect SVG and CANVAS myself, as well as XHTML/JS/CSS handlings, but highlighted this particular item because of the way the "Sparkle" stories focused on web work.

I've been discomfited by "must use IE/Win" web apps in the past, and I don't want to see another generation come 'round, just because of uncritical acceptance of "oh ya it'll work on older Windows" comments.

File formats define an ideal, but it's the implementations and distributions which define the real.

(For the motivations behind this particular media decision, that's between Ian, Google, and their overall audience... different groups make different choices, different times, and as long as they're all consenting adults it's fine by me. ;-)

Good luck on that cross-environment testing -- if you ever get a matrix or set of guidelines for others to use, then I'd like to get the link archived here, thanks!

Posted by: John Dowdell at January 26, 2006 07:05 PM

John,

It's written as of early December, I've learned a couple things since, but you may want to check out my Guide to Deploying SVG with HTML.

Thanks,
Jeff

Posted by: Jeff Schiller at January 26, 2006 07:51 PM