Some of you may know that I recently became the co-chair of the W3C SVG Interest Group. Or as I like to call it, The SVG Fan Club. Being the President of a Fan Club is kind of pathetic, but I guess Doug figured I might be able to better channel any excess energy into doing something that can affect more than my personal web traffic numbers.
What I've been trying to do since I began experimenting with SVG several years ago is build up demos of the technology that are, as much as possible, workable in a cross-browser fashion. I usually build my demos to push the edges of browser support just a little. In other words, give a glimpse of some of potential behind the SVG format while highlighting things for the browser folk to work on.
A case in point: My SVG Web Stats web page - or should I say application? Originally the idea was just to have a graph generated automatically from some server log files. Then I decided to push in a little interactivity. With the most recent wave of browsers (Opera 9.5, Firefox 3, Safari 3.1) the performance and behavior were now quite acceptable and consistent across the three main modern web browsers. So what's the next logical thing to do? Make it slower and buggier again of course (in this case, by adding some SMIL and more functionality that highlight browser inconsistencies) 😉 Viva La Push.
Anyway, we want to use the IG as a platform to work on a select number of initiatives that can produce some more tangible results. Among the initial activites are assessing the state of Accessibility, gathering requirements from Designers, authoring some SVG tests and putting together a better SVG community website. At the moment, I have this naïve hope that we can actually produce something useful, so feel free to crush my spirit below. Or, if you're so inclined and you've got some energy to spare, please feel free to Join The SVG Interest Group.
As tempting as crushing expectations is, as soon as I finish the draft of Learning JavaScript 2nd edition, I’m in.
You know of the two whole reviews I’ve had of Painting the Web, both were negative of my coverage of SVG. That’s a shame, too, because support for SVG is broader than just a stupid Adobe plug-in.
(Did you also know that if you access the Adobe plug-in page with IE8, set to IE8, you can’t access the plug-in link? Half the page is blocked off.)
In addition the W3C’s crappy web system won’t let me login, and I’m not sure I’m up for the whole invited expert thing.
Talk about being discouraging. No wonder SVG isn’t taking off.
Congratsulations on your position. I am interested in SVG, but I have not yet done much experimentation with it. I might look into the IG, but I probably have too little experience to join.
Congratulations with your fan club.
For “putting together a better SVG community website” you might find some useful ideas at http://svg.org/story/2007/1/31/23811/0350
In short: visual, automagically build on other content around the web, have people showing of their workflow (screencasts), interactive, responsive, accessible
An SVG fan that hopes to have time to join the club in about 2 months
Jeff, if you think it’s pathetic being the President of the SVG Fan Club, think how bad off I am being the Treasurer. 🙂
Actually, I couldn’t think of a better person to do the job, and we’re grateful you’ve taken the role… your enthusiasm and insight are already showing interesting results.
If anyone has problems joining, please let me know offline. I’m happy to help.
C’mon Doug – being in the Working Group, you’re more like the manager (or at least one of the roadies) to the rock star that is SVG *flicks lighter and waves in air*