Bb's RealTech

I was quite pleased to see all of the activity related to SVG in the HTML5 working group's public email list. I agree with those who say that HTML5 needs to be able to work with any unknown vocabulary via namespaces, rather than try to coerce a HTMLized version of SVG and MathML. A case in point is the vocabulary items providing metadata information about the image that Inkscape puts into SVG documents. Creative Commons, Dublin Core, its own stuff–Inkscape believes in metadata.

In the meantime, I will continue using XHTML with my SVG design integration. I was momentarily peeved about the repetition of the "draconian" error handling of XHTML every time anyone even mentions the topic. However, I've since decided that rather than be peeved, I should feel flattered. According to the people who talk about the "draconian" nature of XHTML, I must then be some kind of superwoman to be able to support it. Hey, go me.

Burningbird currently demonstrates my new philosophy of design, though not necessarily using a specific design I will keep–though it is bright and cheerful in a "Horton Hears a Who" way, and I need bright and cheerful with all the rain and flooding we're having. As I've mentioned in a couple of earlier posts, the site uses a relatively simple SVG image as flexible background, in addition to other SVG for decorative accents. For IE or other user agents that can't process SVG, I provide a tiny repeating blue striped background, so that they don't get a plain page. Different but decent.

Though I use the rgba function to set the semi-transparent background of the center column and sidebar, I first define a background color using hex notation:

.column
{
        background-color: #fff;
}
.column
{
        background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0.8);
}

Browsers that don't support the rgba function yet will pick up the hex notation, getting a nice coordinated blue center column, with white for content and sidebar; otherwise, they'll pick up the rgba notation, with a completely transparent center column, and semi-transparent sidebar and entry area.

Safari and Firefox support rgba, but Opera doesn't at the moment (it most likely will in the next beta release). However, again the design is such that it degrades gracefully and looks decent even without support for this CSS3 color module attribute. Or I think it looks decent, though lord knows I'm not a web designer. Let's say my use of the technology is sound, but my design sense may suck, depending on your perspective.

I've also implemented text-shadow, in this weblog and at Burningbird. The sub-headings have a very tiny text-shadow, which really makes the text pop out nicely:

        text-shadow: #ccc 1px 1px 2px;

Opera and Safari both support text-shadow, but there's no adverse impact with browsers that don't. It adds a nice polish, but that's all it is, polish. I really like it, though, and can't wait until Firefox implements it.

All in all, Safari is currently the browser with the most advanced support for my design concepts, with Firefox a close second.

Uploaded with plasq's Skitch!

Another interesting point on the design is the flexibility as to scale. The background scales large for larger monitors, but the entire content will resize based on browser window size, as well as font size and resolution. If you resize the window small enough, the sidebar pushes to the bottom. This is not a bug–the sidebar gets pushed out of the way when the web page is accessed by a smaller device, such as an iPhone. It's still there, but not taking up valuable real estate.

In fact, the photo and the bright yellow box currently showing also demonstrate the scaling–the yellow box is a SVG element that is constrained to size to the parent container, but preserve aspect ratio; the photo will display at its maximum width, but scale down as the window scales. All in all, the site can scale to an infinite width or down to a minimum 40em in width, and still be readable. The site even works with my Kindle, either using the mobile CSS, or when using the Kindle's advanced web browsing, the scaled down width and the blue stripe background (though in gray tones, of course).

Best of all, you can zoom the text and the whole site zooms out, so that the words per line length is consistent.

Uploaded with plasq's Skitch!

That's the key to my site designs in the future–not trying to get the sites to look the same in all devices, but looking good for each. Or at least good enough while still giving me the opportunity to try out new technologies. We've fixated too much in the past on making sure a site looks "the same" in all browsers. We've crippled our creativity trying to make sites look "the same" in all browsers. This was someone's anal design "rule" set out long ago, and it's time we toss the bugger aside.

I promised Bud a writing on SVG and performance, especially as compared to raster images (such as PNG, JPEG, and GIF). I actually checked out the WebKit code to see how it manages graphics, and was surprised at how easy I was able to follow the code considering that I haven't worked with C++ since my old Windows programming days. The WebKit code is well organized and documented, with a minimum of tricksy coding. It really is an excellent product–not the least of which that it will probably be the first browser to pass Acid3. It or Opera, they're both very close.

Anyway, the writing will be coming after my site redesign, after I finish proofs, after I get the next book started, but I wanted to quickly mention my discovery, in the course of my explorations, how committed Apple is to the use of SVG–in browser and out–because of the scalability. Think of it: if you have a desktop icon that you want to look good in a tiny screen, as well as a monster 60 inch television, would you want to use raster images? Of course not. OK, then, would you want to invent a graphics format, or use one that already has extensive tool support, as well as earning you brownie points with the development and open source communities?

*beep* time's up

Apple chose wisely. Still, I was surprised at the strength of commitment Apple has to the integration of SVG into its products. And this despite HTML5 disapproval. Hey, go fruit.

Update Opera is stating they've reached 100/100 on Acid3. Congratulations Opera! Can't wait to get my hands on a working tech preview. When I do, I'll run it against the *Firefox Minefield edition, and the latest WebKit build and we'll see how they're all doing. The real test is getting 100/100 with a publicly accessible browser version.

I will declare a winner in my Acid3 races once I've seen the 100/100 with my own little eyeballs. Being as I'm superwoman and all.

*Oh, and IE8, too.

I've pulled the plug-in. It cleaned out the comment text, but not the name, URL, and email of the person. The email isn't an issue, as WP ensures the email is clean; the URL and the name, however, are still an issue. A new comment isn't the problem; edited comments are.

Frankly, if you're going to serve your pages up as XHTML, your best bet is to moderate comments so you can catch every variation of something that can go wrong. Either that, or get rid of comments, which is also an option.

I'll post a new version, once I've checked those fields, and completed a few other odds and ends.

I thought it interesting and even odd how few people have remarked on the fact that Ray Ozzie began the opening keynote of a conference focused specifically at developers by talking about ads.

My source for things geek, Planet Intertwingly, has had very few entries devoted to IE8. I imagine people either don't care or are trying things out. Or perhaps they're at ETech or on their way to SxSW. What a way to filter your audience: schedule the conferences at the same time. What sad irony that Ozzie next spoke of the Yahoo deal, as Yahoo itself was launching its latest, greatest tech initiative, which was then overshadowed by Microsoft's rolling out of the IE8 public beta.

Not to be outdone, Apple has something today probably about its SDK. All we're missing is something from Adobe, but it preferred to dance alone.

To return to IE8. One doesn't have to tax one's imagination to read the purpose behind the 'advances' in IE8. All of the new functionality is focused on Microsoft's new "cloud" agenda, including client data storage support for offline working, and back button navigation. According to the "readiness" document I linked yesterday:

Internet Explorer 8 provides a simplified yet powerful programming model for AJAX development that spans browser, webpage, and server interaction. As a result, it is easier for you to build webpages that have much better end-user experiences, are more functional, and have better performance. APIs are based on the W3C HTML 5.0 or Web Applications Working Group standards. Enhancements or novel intellectual property for AJAX will be made available for standardization before the Internet Explorer 8 release.

The thing is, HTML5 is most definitely a work in progress. What Microsoft has done is cherry picked what it wanted, implemented it, threw in its own stuff and then glossed it over by either attaching it's own bizarre "open source" license, or tossed the non-critical bits into the public domain.

The proprietary bits aside, it is typical for vendors to start implementing standards before they're finalized, as a test and a validation. Just as typically, though, the other members of the standards group are usually aware of such plans. I am curious to hear what other members of the HTML5 working group think of IE8 and the HTML5 bits.

As for me, not hard to see that I'm unhappy. I have a choice now: do I continue to serve this site using the XHTML MIME type, in which case it will never be accessible by IE (because I now believe Microsoft will never support the XHTML MIME type); or do I "break" my site by adding back content negotiation?

I wrote previously that I had a plan I was going to implement if Microsoft didn't support XHTML with IE8. In the back of my mind, I really thought the company would. Not to do so is the company saying that, for all its talk about standards and openness, it will implement only those standards that support its own agenda, and no others. While I expected this attitude, I didn't expect Microsoft to be so obvious about it.

I really didn't expect Microsoft to blow off XHTML, and now that it has, I have some work to do on my sites to follow through on my fallback plan. I'm not doing anything earth shattering, or probably all that interesting to most folks (since, seemingly, standards take a back seat to ads for today's new web developer). I'm just dealing with the situation.

I'm also investigating Drupal, as a content tool–either alone or perhaps with Wordpress. I've been interested in Drupal since I started looking through the site and the code base. I became more interested when Maki mentioned the SVG Toolkit for Drupal, and Elaine talked about how improved it is. Then Ian Davis at Nodalities mentioned Drupal's RDF and semantic web commitment yesterday, and that's all she wrote for me.

The Drupal folks seem more committed to supporting standards, all standards, than the Wordpress folk. And when I read something about Drupal, I read about the technology; I don't read about ads or mergers. This focus on technology appeals to me right now.