Thanks for your comments Tav. You said:
IE never supported it... that is why it never caught on on big websites.
But in my research, I found this
http://srufaculty.sru.edu/david.dailey/svg/SVGAnimations.htm#SMIL
(and whole bunch of stuff from David Dailey - http://srufaculty.sru.edu/david.dailey/svg/)
which seems to indicate it did, at least when all those pages were written.
-------------------------------------------------- From: "Tavmjong Bah" <tavmjong@...8...> Sent: Sunday, May 31, 2015 8:25 AM To: "Brynn" <brynn@...3133...> Cc: "Inkscape-Devel" Inkscape-devel@lists.sourceforge.net Subject: Re: [Inkscape-devel] google deprecating SMIL for Chrome
On Sat, 2015-05-30 at 12:16 -0600, Brynn wrote:
Hi Friends, Someone brought to my attention, the other day, this entry in Tavmjong's blog: http://tavmjong.free.fr/blog/?p=1262, which discusses Google's Intent to Deprecate SMIL in the Chrome browser, and links to that discussion: https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/forum/?_escaped_fragment_=topic/bli... Since I've been learning a lot more about animation (while writing a new Animation page for the website) it really seems rather shocking. From what I understand (although still learning, *Always*) it seems like SMIL comes the closest to being "true" SVG animation (of all the existing ways to animate SVG).
I was rather shocked too. SMIL does seem to fit in SVG rather nicely.
The Intent to Deprecate message says that MS will be creating CSSanimation support for SVG, which will make animation of SVG possible in all browsers. I don't have the technical knowledge to be able to compare SMIL to this new CSS animation (and since it says "just announced" maybe it doesn't actually exist yet). (I am aware of current CSS3 animation, but not about this new bit.)
Web animations is still a spec under development. It's goal is (was) to provide a common animation model for both CSS animations and SMIL animations.
But I'm definitely curious about what will be lost of SMIL, whichthat new CSS can't replicate, or conversely, if this new CSS will have any new abilities that SMIL doesn't have. And I'm curious what our Inkscape community thinks about this apparently pending deprecation in Chrome? (Because I guess Mozilla/Firefox will follow suit, since IE already stopped supporting it, some versions back. And that makes it seem like a sad day for animation with Inkscape.)
SMIL is somewhat simpler to write. SMIL can animate attributes as well as properties. The biggest loss, in my mind, is the ability to animate paths.
IE never supported it... that is why it never caught on on big websites. There was hope that with the common animation model that IE would eventually come around (or provide a native JavaScript implementation).
I understand that the hopes from several years ago, to have aworking SVG animation tool by the release of Inkscape 1.0, have now gone by the wayside (I guess for lack of anyone interested enough to do it). But I wonder, if Inkscape had even an experimental SVG animation model, based on SMIL (along with a new UI which probably would be needed, afaiu) if Google would still want to deprecate SMIL?
Inkscape has never even had an experimental animation model. Creating an animation editor is much more complex that just rendering an animation.
I do see some comments in the Intent to Deprecate discussion,from Inkscape-related people, or organizations, but I'm surprised not to see any discussion here in this list. Is it just because of not having anyone (or small group) interested in developing animation for Inkscape? Or maybe there was some discussion on IRC, where I don't usually watch. It just seems a little hopeless to me, not to see a vigorous uproar about it, or even any comments from Inkscape developers on the google discussion. I must be still missing something in my understanding of animation and Inkscape. Maybe it's much more hopeless than I realize, no matter what google does with Chrome?
There has always been interest in animation editing in Inkscape but there has never been a developer who has had enough interest, skill, and time to do it.
What do you all think about google deprecating SMIL?Personally not happy at all.
Anybody who is interested in SMIL should read Chrome's page and comment on it. Their position would be stronger if they actually use SMIL (and not just on a demo or how-to page which will be greatly discounted).
Tav