The Craft of SVG, Philip Mansfield’s Keynote
SVG has tremendous untapped potential, it’s incredibly powerful and web compatible, tools are in the infancy, and we’ve only begun to appreciate what’s possible.
Graphic Artist, Software Developer, Web Developer <- we need convergence of roles to create web-applications.
We need new authoring tools, export filters are insufficient, tiny fraction of language, the novel features are teh missing ones, and it’s not round-trippable. We need native SVG editors, that focus on design objectives not generating SVG primitives
Native SVG editor, needs IDE and graphic design components.
One SVG many CSS - seperate style from content - re-purpose graphical content, different mediums/priorities etc.
One CSS many SVG - Leave style to stylesheet, change design etc.
Demos of the techniques involved
Lots of discussion on using CSS in SVG, very poorly used at the moment, need to get it out there, it’s important techniques, especially as now we have viewers which export external references.
XSLT to transform XML to SVG, demo of a chart… SVG could be a web drawing API, to render other graphical formats, e.g. MathML/GML/world3D etc.
SVG as graphical UI for web-apps - skinnable components, seperating app-logic from presentation logic.
- Novel features
- Markers and text, e.g. markers on a path that are text, e.g. for cutting cloth demo.
- Text and filters
- Animate filter effects, e.g. shimmering mirrors or light sources moving.
- Animate CSS properties
- Animate Gradients
- Gradients and filters
- Matrix maths with filter effects.
The challenge for software vendors: create a UI aligned with objectives not primitives, and integrate workflow between design and programming elements.Hmm, earlier we were on seperating content from design, why do we need tools that integrate elements we’re seperate them.
The challenge for programmers: take a Graphic design course, combine features to achieve goal, and develop the craft of SVG.Hmm, we should aim on getting workflows that can combine the 2 people working in their own disciplines, and get good products out, programmers will never be good designers.