Re: [XaraXtreme-dev] Ping

[Alex Bligh <alex@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

--On 15 February 2007 19:46 -0400 bulia byak <buliabyak@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> 4. SVG as native format. It may not matter for most users, but it's
> very important for developers. SVG is everywhere these days. It is
> easy to learn, XML-based, and therefore very hackable.

I think there are huge advantages to having SVG as a native format. Many
times I've wished Xara not only imported SVG successfully, but was
(effectively) natively scriptable. And yet there have been many more times
when I'm really glad Xtreme is not constrained by that. Personally, I think
Inkscape will always win as the open-source SVG editor. I'm not sure that
equates, however, to being the best graphics design package; that's at
least in part because I think SVG as native format is always going to act
as a constraint that way.

The above is clearly handwaving. If you want a real example, let's see
Inkscape load a really complex .xar file. By which I mean millions of
nodes, hundreds of thousands of shapes; take some of the photorealistic
clipart, and get it (somehow) into Inkscape. Even the apple file (produced
I think about 15 years ago) with live blends. I'm betting Xara will win
hands down. To show I'm not being unfair: let's see Xara edit an SVG file,
or, for that matter, any portable vector graphics format. Right now, it
fails dismally. I suspect the best it will ever achieve this way is to be
"slightly less conformant to file format specs than Inkscape"; however
that's a hell of a lot better than where it is now.

Thought: supporting document interchange and SVG embedding within
Xtreme would make these two programs complementary to a large extent.

Alex