W3C SVG Working Group Update for January 2010

In this post, I want to share some examples of the progress going on in the SVG Working Group. Microsoft recently joined the SVG Working Group, and other members (Mozilla, Apple and Opera among others) welcomed us warmly. I'm hopeful about the ways that SVG (both its current direction and future potential) could make the web better. We want the spec to be clear, consistent, and predictable for developers. We’re working out ambiguities such as “Pointer events and clip-paths”, “CSS Selectors <use> and as well as inconsistencies with stroked-dasharray” and “<use> and its interaction with the DOM and rendering” so that web developers can write SVG once and know that it will be interoperable across browsers.

I have to admit I was a little hesitant at first to get guidance and clarity on a dozen or so items we found to be ambiguous (see public SVG WG discussion threads), however the positive response has been overwhelming.   Of course we are not the only members raising these issues, but we are happy to be a part of the process.  The future of SVG is bright.

Additionally, Microsoft looks forward to hosting the next SVG Working Group face-to-face meeting in Brussels this May.

A special thanks to those on the Working Group for their warm welcome and shared goals of creating a specification that will promote standards based interoperable graphics for the web.

Patrick Dengler
Senior Program Manager
Internet Explorer Team