Bullseye!!

you are in savethegaywhale || msc || conclusion

This research sought answers to the following questions:

1. Does SVG have sufficient advantages over Flash; with respect to bandwidth, client side rendering, usability of interactive features and other key attributes which research may elicit to enable it to become the primary means of vector graphic delivery on the Internet?

The results suggest that at the time of writing SVG does not have sufficient advantages over Flash. With respect to bandwidth there is no significant difference between the formats. Client side rendering from a hardware perspective is better on low power computers in Flash, however trends in computer development and purchasing may significantly mitigate this. Furthermore the relative maturity of Flash, coupled with the propriety nature of Flash (a single development environment producing output for a single plugin) means that Flash has less bugs. Additionally, it is suggested that the limited ability of the majority of GUI SVG development environments is a workflow restriction to developers despite that face that SVG code is human readable and can be edited in a text editor. The latter is compounded by the SVG plugins, which do not fully support the SVG standard and (notably with ASV3 and ASV6) depart from it in some respects. This puts SVG developers and users at a disadvantage with respect to Flash.

2. What key developments are required to facilitate wider use of SVG?

Users of Flash are, compared to SVG users, in an enviable position. For the most part the media offers the user a trouble free and (potentially) a rich interactive experience. In the event of no plugin or an out of date plugin the user is provided with meaningful information. As has been shown this is not the case with SVG, plugin related usability problems are regarded very seriously by users. Developers need to include scripts and text messages into web pages that will meaningfully assist users who do not have the necessary plugins. On a wider scale the inclusion of an SVG viewer into the next iteration of Microsoft Internet Explorer, with native support for SVG being included in a major release will ensure wider access to SVG images. The focus on Internet Explorer is appropriate (although it might place undue emphasis on externalities) as it is the primary browser (Upsdell, 2003). Full native support for SVG in HTML browsers might allow the W3C to develop the HTML standard to permit the inclusion of nested SVG code within HTML (or XML) code. Additionally there is a need to include high quality content that complies with the above conditions on a website that attracts a substantial number of users as this will encourage the distribution of plugins which should in turn encourage a wider body of developers to publish SVG content.

Despite the current situation where Flash is dominant by virtue of advantages that come with maturity. SVG has a number of advantages, which will encourage its use in the longer term. Cost; despite the limitations of doing so, SVG can be authored in a text editor or with an open source package such as SodiPodi , which will attract developers. Accessibility (in the context of special needs); the text based nature of SVG code will facilitate specialist software; this is very significant at a time of increasing special needs legislation. That SVG is text based makes it more accessible to search engines than Flash. This project has undertaken a wide ranging comparison of Flash and SVG, which hitherto has not been done. This included the building of interactive multimedia applications in both formats of a type that, as far as could be ascertained, had not been attempted in SVG before. As such it has been able to identify with a degree of precision certain aspects of the strengths and weaknesses of SVG.

Finally, as has already been alluded to, it is important to recognise that this project has sought to compare Flash and SVG, using Flash as the control. This has, arguably, prevented a full examination of SVG's strengths.