Re: [XaraXtreme-dev] Xara's feature

[Alex Bligh <alex@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

--On 19 February 2007 15:15 +0100 Jose Hevia 
<jose.francisco.hevia@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> > SVG - is shit.
>
> Wonderful flame!

I'd actually assumed it was sarcasm. SVG and .XAR do two different, but
overlapping things (like, say .tex and .doc). Unless and until SVG
substantially changes there are always going to be things which are more
compactly represented in .XAR, which is a richer format. But you are always
going to have better interoperability with SVG. Inkscape made the decision
(which I completely understand) to use SVG as it's internal format as well.
That has advantages (e.g. no interoperability problems between SVG and
native format!) and disadvantages (e.g. constraints on the richness of what
is saved). I think it's vital for Xtreme (commercial or open-source
version) to get decent SVG support for interoperability reasons. That
aside, it's a "tools for the job" question. If you are designing (say)
vector icons, you want to work in SVG because that's the format everyone
uses (and it may well be that Inkscape would remain the better tool for
that even when Xtreme has decent SVG support). However, if you want to
produce photorealistic vector artwork, I think .xar is likely to give you a
better result. If you want to pick a difference between them, far better
pick on something like "live blends" rather than fill types (which could be
added, rendering engine permitting, to SVG and Inkscape pretty easily I'd
have thought).

Alex