[thelist] IE and Standards Compliance (was: Re: news.com article on browsers and mainstream sites etc..)

James Aylard evolt at pixelwright.com
Tue Jul 9 12:29:01 CDT 2002


Tom,

> Along those lines, one feature we are using of IE is that is allows
> native display of VML, which until very recently no other browser
> could - I am not sure however about the new crop of Geckos out there.

    As Mozillians will likely point out, VML is itself a proprietary
technology -- submitted to the W3C [1], to be sure, but not a recommendation
and never likely to become one. The W3C chose SVG [2] as its vector-graphics
language, and VML will probably forever be considered a
Microsoft-proprietary technology (though in fact it received the backing of
other heavy hitters such as HP, Macromedia, and Autodesk). There is some
thought that Mozilla will integrate SVG into its browser [3] as Microsoft
has integrated VML in IE, but I don't think that's a reality yet.
    On IE-based Intranets and other IE-only sites, VML integration can
indeed be one of those innovations that provide considerable value to web
developers. Hopefully some day Microsoft will also integrate SVG into IE,
but I won't hold my breath.

1. http://www.w3.org/TR/NOTE-VML
2. http://www.w3.org/TR/SVG/
3. http://www.mozilla.org/projects/svg/

James Aylard




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