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Re: What are people using SVG for?

• To: xml-dev@l...
• Subject: Re: What are people using SVG for?
• From: "Thomas B. Passin" <tpassin@c...>
• Date: Mon, 14 Apr 2003 20:26:47 -0400
• References: <1e7.689c35d.2bc83292@a...><001601c30093$c52cdcb0$6401a8c0@tbp1> <3E9A9947.1020608@e...>

[Robin Berjon]

> Thomas B. Passin wrote:
> > I was very happy I could use SVG and liked it much better than working
with
> > Postscript - although PS can do a lot more or at least it is easier to
> > figure out how
>
> I'd be interested in knowing what PS can do that SVG can't and that you'd
have
> liked to see in SVG while working on those tasks.
>

It has been nearly ten years since I worked with Postscript, so my memory is
hazy.  Aside from font metrics, it seems to me that it was easier for me to
scale a drawing without scaling the font size.  I found that to be a problem
for me with SVG.  I suppose I did not work hard enough to get a balance
between defining bits and pieces with separate transforms, vs fewer
transforms applying on a larger scale.  But as I remember it, I rarely had
trouble understanding to move things around and scale them with PS, yet
still label them with a font whose size I chose (and which stayed unscaled).

Also, because PS is a pretty capable programming language, it was easy to
compute things on the fly when I needed to.  You understand, I am comparing
my PS experiences with generating SVG without a language binding (e.g.,
using a stand-alone stylesheet).  From my point of view, the PS program was
a sort of equivalent to the results of a transformaton that produces svg,
because in both cases, I would feed the result to the renderer and get some
image displayed.

> > But SVG is missing one capability that really gets in the
> > way of using it in complex applications, so far as I am concerned.  That
is
> > the lack of font metrics.  You cannot find out how big any piece of text
is,
> > so you cannot programatically line many things up, you cannot properly
break
> > lines, etc.  I hope that the SVG language experts have or will figure
out a
> > way to deal with that, because I think it is essential.
>
> Can you tell me what you found missing from the SVGTextContentElement[0]
> interface? getComputedTextLength() could be of some help, and you should
be able
> to call getBBox() on a <text> element.
>

I cannot call any of those methods when transforming xml into svg with an
ordinary stylesheet, AFAICT, since I have do DOM available to work with.  Is
that not right?  But they ought to be very useful where there is a language
binding available.

Cheers,

Tom P

• Follow-Ups:
  • Re: What are people using SVG for?
    • From: Robin Berjon <robin.berjon@e...>

• References:
  • What are people using SVG for?
    • From: AndrewWatt2000@a...
  • Re: What are people using SVG for?
    • From: "Thomas B. Passin" <tpassin@c...>
  • Re: What are people using SVG for?
    • From: Robin Berjon <robin.berjon@e...>

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