Jon Cruz wrote:
To go along with that we would need to get CSS media selectors and many other fun things we *really* want to have. However, we could not call that SVG 1.x
Additionally, SVG allows for the user agent (that's us) to decide on what DPI to use. Specify an inch and you might get 72 dots or you might get 96, but you as a designer should not care.
--- Dots != pixels. I almost mentioned that. But pixels are the CSS entity, not dots. Dots, as you quite rightly say would represent the physical attributes of the display device.
Additionally, what is legible text to one person is often *not* legible to another, even when the monitor DPI remains the same.
--- Not relevant when you say that something is 1" high and it better be 1" high when measured at 96 pixels (not 96 dots -- but dots aren't referenced in the spec).
Get a 144dpi display and watch large portions of the web be suddenly be 2/3rd's their intended size and much more difficult to read.
Well... that depends. If one defines a font in point sizes, then as the density of the display increased the number of pixels used in letters would correspondingly increase.
--- True. I fight for people (including in 'firefox/Tbird' that still sets default font sizes in old hardware based pixels (they are moving to CSS3, just haven't fully gotten there yet). When they get in canvas support it'll have to be there.
Freaky. However, until SVG 2.0 we might be a bit stuck on things.
But... remember that we are dealing with the SVG world here, and not the HTML world. The pragmatic solution is to involve view boxes and such to pin things down to specific user needs. HTML is not often sent out to a laser cutter for creating home furniture, but SVG is :-)
--- Hopefully they aren't measuring furniture in pixels. That's the hair-splitting we are engaged in. We are pretty much on the same page, I'm just talking about the use of the word / unit, 'pixel', as it refers to a screen technology where HTML and CSS will be dominant. But dpi, lpi, you are getting into real world measurements not made up units. I didn't like the idea of them redefining the word 'pixels', but it's a done deal years ago. It's bigger than me and I got more important things to worry about. I just try to relay my information from disparate sources to the appropriate people. I'm spread far too thin to follow through on most things.
What I was jazzed about in the HTML5 spec were the examples that showed <img src=xxx.svg> as a standard image format. Looked so much simpler than all the embedded stuff needed now... :-)
-linda