Re: [Devel] SVG & Fonts [was FreeType gzip support completed]

[Leonard Rosenthol]

At 6:19 PM +0100 11/20/02, David Turner wrote:
> And yes, I wouldn't be surprised if FreeType was used in more than
> 90% of SVG Viewers out there because it supports a sufficient number
> of the "standard" formats :-)

	I don't think it's that high, since none of the major ones 
are using it (Adobe, Batik, Mozilla+SVG), but yes, there are many 
that do...


> I don't agree completely. The Adobe SVG Viewer is probably the most
> installed viewer, due to the number of Windows desktops in the world,

	Actually, it's the most installed viewer due to the fact that 
Adobe added it to the Acrobat Reader installer with version 4.05, so 
that you can't install Acrobat Reader on a Mac OS or Windows computer 
w/o also getting the SVG Viewer.

	It's also auto-installed with any other Adobe application 
(Photoshop, Illustrator, etc.)


> so any format that isn't supported by it can be considered DOA
> (dead on arrival) for these users.

        Right.


> Microsoft didn't jumped into the SVG band-wagon.

	Not with their own implementation, but they worked VERY 
closely with Adobe to make their SVG viewer work well with 
IE/Windows.  They also made numerous contributions to the SVG working 
group during it's time...


> My opinion is that SVG's future will necessarily be narrowed to
> standalone scalable images (e.g. icons).

        Let's hope not - since the alternative is Flash :(.


Leonard
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Leonard Rosenthol                            <mailto:address@hidden>
                                             <http://www.lazerware.com>