Good, Bad and Ugly things about SVG

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After working with SVG for a few weeks, here are my initial impressions:

  • Includes a very friendly XML schema which is easy to implement (GOOD)
  • Nice mix of high & low level rendering capabilities (GOOD)
  • I couldn't find a way to control the rendering DPI.. it seems locked into 72 (UGLY)
  • Spec includes both regular XML version and a compressed format for smaller footprint files (GOOD)
  • Has several different viewers with reasonable compability including Adobe and Corel (GOOD)
  • Has NO built in printing capabilites - The SVG spec doesn't include printing, or print control elements such as numbering, page breaks, etc. (BAD!)
  • Most viewers don't support printing in any way or form , Adobe supports limited rastered printing. (BAD)
  • Rendering performance is problematic. The SharpVectorGraphics library can take up to 5 seconds to render a page... Even the Adobe viewer is much slower than the PDF viewer for any given document. (BAD)

In MHO, SVG shows a lot of promise but is still not 100% ready for prime-time. The upcoming versions of the specs should handle many of the issues I mentioned and many vendors are joining the SVG bandwagon, so it is probably a pretty good bet going forward. However if you plan implement or consume SVG *today* then you can expect the usual grief and aggravation associated with cutting edge technologies...

Just my 2 cents :)