Jibbering Musings

foafnaut is the SVG viewer of foaf data, unfortunately the current data doesn’t get updated as I’m trying to convince other scutter people to provide the data. I’ve just put together an HTML version, this does much the same as the SVG version, but not as impressively, there’s no sproings linking the blubs for a start. (A blub is the thing that represents a person, a sproing the line between them.)

In Internet Explorer using VML, or in Deer Park using SVG, there are sproings, the lines are drawn in. This shows very well how well mixed namespace documents can work, html is good at marking up the information panel, but atrocious at drawing the lines - especially ones that are animated. Hopefully soon Opera and Safari will get scripted SVG - Opera still has static - so I’m not going to attempt an alternative with lines for them, just wait until the UA’s catch up with the script.

The SVG version is still much richer, there’s some automatic layout to keep blubs away from each other, the dragging is more reliable, the graphics much better, but for a simple taster the htmlnaut isn’t too bad.