Re: FLASH: SVG?

[John Dowdell]

At 7:57 PM 8/25/0, Arcanus wrote:

> John, what do you see for SVG? I can't see it. I think a Flash

> browser that didn't know HTML from Uncle Milty would be more useful.


Me, personally? It seems like it has potential for a file-exchange

format... applications can ignore chunks they can't use. It also seems like

it could be useful for extraction of parts of graphics... it's inherently

splittable. There's a lot of hype, for sure, but that doesn't mean that

there couldn't be actually useful stuff to do with a text-based graphics

format.


My main goal is to connect designers' desires with the development team

here... if someone has an unmet need, then it's to my advantage to get

these groups connected.




At 10:51 PM 8/26/0, Damien Morton wrote:

> The real problem is this: Flash has some appeal because of its

> proprietary nature. You know exactly what you are going to get on

> any given platform. Flash is unitary. SVG will never be that.

> Unless everybody adopts the Adobe player there will no doubt be

> standards wars etc etc and ,like HTML, designers will have to deal

> with multiple platforms and players behaving in all kinds of ways.

> Everybody knows that thats no fun at all, and a complete waste of

> time and money.


That's true, and is the main reason that modelling potential SVG use on

current Macromedia Flash use seems sort of offbase. There may be other

useful ways to use the file format though.




> > doesn't Macromedia keep the published .swf spec current?

>

> Actually, Macromedia doesnt seem to be keeping its published SWF

> spec current. They released the docs to the Flash 4 spec a few

> months before they released Flash 5, and the word I hear is that

> they no longer speak of Flash being an 'open' standard.


The SWF4 documentation was late, true, and we've paid horribly for it. The

actual causes were formatting and legal concerns, but the general

assumption is that it was deliberately delayed. This isn't true, but that

doesn't matter... we're tarred with that brush regardless.


The SWF5 documentation is in the pipeline along with the trial and

localized and academic versions and all. I don't have an estimated date for

its delivery yet, but I can assure you that no one here in the shop wants

to suffer a delay similar to the SWF4 documentation.




These "SVG" threads seem to go 'round and 'round on themselves, though...

I'm really hunting for actual customer needs, so please don't be shy about

bringing them forward, thanks.


jd






John Dowdell, Macromedia Tech Support, San Francisco CA US

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