Dueling vector graphics formats will be a boon
By Darcy Dinucci
April 27, 1998 10:07am
Mac Week Online
The first draft of this column was all about Macromedia Flash. I was going to exhort browser makers to work with Macromedia Inc. to add native support for the format.
Flash's vector-based, interactive animations add more punch per kilobyte than any other Web format. The Web needs interactive vector graphics, and Flash is the de facto standard. Designers love it, but they can't use it as much as they'd like; relying on a browser plug-in to provide the kind of interfaces Flash is great for puts your site at the risk of being inaccessible.
Then, just as I pushed my chair back from the desk, I got two news flashes. First, Adobe Systems Inc. and Netscape Communications Corp. proposed a new vector format to the World Wide Web Consortium, or W3C (see 04.20.98, Page 1). Within 24 hours, Macromedia said it was opening up Flash, inviting browser vendors to support it (see 04.20.98, Page 1). Just when Flash seemed ready to declare itself a standard, a daunting competitor entered the field.
Two formats, one goal
Adobe and Netscape's vector format, PGML (Precision Graphics Markup Language), is essentially PostScript described in Extensible Markup Language with additional commands supporting features such as animation, interactivity and anti-aliasing.
As an XML application, PGML is readable, easily extensible and controllable via JavaScript. Its PostScript heritage has other advantages: a rich graphics description vocabulary and a panoply of authoring applications that could handle the format after relatively little tinkering. Java's 2-D graphics API is also based on PostScript, making PGML support via Java almost automatic.
Flash, on the other hand, is a binary format, compiled and inaccessible by standard scripting methods. Its interactivity is part of the format and controlled through custom authoring software. But Flash has its own advantages; in contrast to PGML's print heritage, Flash was nursed by Macromedia's expertise in interactivity.
Now and later
Its most important benefit, though, is its head start. Flash is used by thousands of Web designers, and I expect that native support would be a real competitive advantage for browser makers. (Microsoft and WebTV have pledged support; no word yet from Netscape.)
It will be a while before we see authoring or display support for PGML. Netscape said it will support it but won't say how or when. The spec is just now entering the W3C ratification process, where it could undergo any number of changes. (A third vector format, from Microsoft, is also expected to enter the mix, complicating the process further.)
I predict Flash and PGML will both be important. In the short term, Web browsers should support Flash and let designers take advantage of a format that's working now. Meanwhile, PGML will make its way through the W3C, resulting in a standard, rich, interactive multimedia Web format -- to which, perhaps, Flash and every other vector format may conform. Either way, designers win.
Darcy DiNucci (darcy@tothepoint.com) is co-author of "Elements of Web Design." She consults on electronic information design from her office in San Francisco.
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