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Hi,
Note: cross-posting to the SVG-Developers who will probably be
interested in this
> The XML vocabulary for Apple's new "Keynote" powerpoint competitor.
> Apparently it includes a fairly complete vector-graphics facility.
>
> http://paulboutin.com/presentation.apxl
Although I am by nature an Apple enthusiast (and already ordered
Keynote) I must say I am a little puzzled by what I see from the XML
grammar used by Keynote.
As you noticed, it includes quite a lot of vector graphics information,
which I must note differs from SVG. What I wonder is why did they have
to use a different grammar. From what I understood from Steve's
keynote, Keynote leverages Quartz2D (OS X's fantastic drawing/imaging
API). If you ever took a close look at Quartz2D you'll notice that
feature-wise it is pretty much closely matches the graphics
capabilities, main differences are compositing model (Quartz2D seems to
only support SRC_OVER - don't quote me on that though, some experts
from the SVG WG could offer more details) and maybe some filters. The
bottom-line is that Apple could very much have built Quartz2D on top of
SVG rather than PDF. It is also worth noticing that Apple took part in
SVG 1.0.
I don't criticize Apple for not chosing SVG over PDF (although I wish
they would use SVG), but I'm puzzled by why they are not using it in
the Keynote XML grammar. Let's take a look at a few things that stroke
me as blatantly weird things:
APXL - <g transformation="1 0 0 1 12 24.75">
Ok, the <g> element, which I guess is a pretty close mapping to SVG' s
own <g>. However, the "transformation" attribute here reminds me of the
SVG "transform" attribute. Different attribute name, and also different
attribute grammar. SVG would have it written <g transform="matrix(1 0 0
1 12 24.75)">. Since it seems that feature-wise this is doing the same
thing, why use a different grammar? There are other "close but no
cigar" occurences such as the generic <shape> element with a "path"
attribute close to SVG's <path> "d" attribute, gradients
Other dodgy things I've seen is APXL constantly avoiding leveraging
CSS. Not only are there no CSS properties but rather (arguably
regrettable in SVG too) presentation attributes and even <styles>
elements, but also APXL fails to leverage CSS types such as RGB colors.
Another weird thing is the failure to use reusable definitions for
things like gradients. In SVG, one defines gradient elements (both
linear and radial) once and can reuse them as many times he likes. In
APXL we can see things like this:
<styles>
<fill-style fill-type="gradient">
<gradient end-color="0.00392157 0.690196 1" start-color="0.6 1 0.8"
gradient-angle="180"/>
</fill-style>
<dash-style pattern="none"/>
<shadow-style opacity="0" radius="0"/>
</styles>
We can once again see differences in the APXL grammar for gradients.
You'll also see that drop-shadow is also done differently than the way
you do it with SVG.
It seems to me that there are no graphics features in Keynote that are
not available in SVG. Actually, there are similarities in the way that
graphics data are expressed in APXL but I fail to see any SVG
leveraging. I think this is quite dissappointing design from Apple and
a bit of a dirty XML serialization to me. XML is great for defining
open and interoperable grammars, but what's the point of re-inventing
the wheel here?
Keynote does look real sexy though!
Antoine
--
Antoine Quint <antoine.quint@fuchsia-design.com>
SVG Consultant & Research Engineer, Fuchsia Design
W3C SVG Working Group Invited Expert
Journal - http://use.perl.org/~graouts/journal/
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