Comments on: SVG… the Era of Scalable (and Programmable) Vector Graphics on the Web

By: Scott Frangos

Scott Frangos — Sun, 09 Dec 2007 18:56:02 +0000

Hello Vlasta -
Thanks for your comment and perspective on this. I’d wager you are not alone in your criticism of SVGs. I agree that the closest comparison is to Flash, but I think for newbies who don’t know what “Vector” means, that it helps to understand how they are different than raster formats. I don’t agree it is a “bad format.” Sure, you can use an editor to create your pictures — InkScape is one good free example for creating SVGs — and, that’s great… but adding the ability to script and code your images is very powerful. I took a look around at browser support, and found that IE7 does not yet build it in, but Adobe (the Flash people) provide a plugin that does. Interesting. Other browsers all are doing quite well with SVG support (you said FireFox is not… perhaps you have examples of what you mean?). Take a look at this link for what Mozilla has implemented regarding SVGs in Firefox: http://developer.mozilla.org/en/docs/SVG_in_Firefox_1.5 - Scott [Ed.]

By: Vlasta

Vlasta — Sun, 09 Dec 2007 11:11:16 +0000

I do not share you enthusiasm for SVG. Comparing it to raster image formats is unfair and a comparison to flash, which you mention, would be better. I am a software developer and I have read a few things about SVG. It is a bad format. It tries to be all and is nothing. Let’s face it, editing svg as text is nonsense, you’ll always need an editor to create real pictures. There are 10s of ways how to do the same thing, which is useless and only makes the result hard to understand. And, it is extremely difficult to create a stable, solid viewer for SVG - let’s look at Firefox, they have tried to support SVG and they had a lot of time to implement it - it still sucks. The fact that something is free does not make it better, although many people things so…

By: Scott Frangos

Scott Frangos — Sat, 08 Dec 2007 17:52:50 +0000

Hi - thanks for stopping by. This is a good time to look at SVG’s… they’ve actually been around for a while, but are just now building up some awareness and momentum. I have taught web graphics for some time, and the standard formats still have a lock hold in most colleges. But everyone loves Flash, at times, and SVG’s are a free, open source alternative with some good free editors (Inkscape) out there. We’ll take a look at your blog — LearnToBlog101.com. - Scott [Ed.]

By: LearnToBlog101.com

LearnToBlog101.com — Sat, 08 Dec 2007 16:11:18 +0000

I followed a link to your article from a forum. Very interesting. I have just recently become competent with .PSD’s, I’m definitely going to look more into SVG’s so I can be on the inside of this new format and not playing catch up like I’ve done on all the other formats. Thanks for the information I look forward to exploring this more.

By: Scott Frangos

Scott Frangos — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 17:59:22 +0000

Hello Stelt - Thanks for your comment and great link. I took a look and saw a very complete resource for all things SVG, including… songs about SVGs. Songs? Wow. I agree with your thought that there are a number of SVG resources out there waiting to be discovered, but the fact that i missed them is exactly my point.

At a national Technical college, where I work, the curriculum slides for the Web Scripting course still list only JPEGS, PNGs, and GIFS at the standard web graphic formats. This college has schools in 30 states. And just about anyone (not already actively involved with SVG production) that I talk to is unaware of scripting power inherent in SVGs beyond simply the Vector features. So… keep up your good work. - Scott [Ed.]

PS. Thanks for catching the typo.

By: stelt

stelt — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 16:20:06 +0000

Some things just take time, but as you use the word inertia i think you might have missed a few things.
Take a look at http://svg.startpagina.nl for a rich spectrum of things SVG is used for (including really new stuff).

PS: It’s “scalable”, not “scaleable”