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Microsoft Joins W3C SVG Working Group

As a part of Microsoft’s continued commitment to interoperability and standards support, yesterday we submitted our request to join the Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) Working Group of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). We’re excited to take part in ensuring future versions of the SVG spec will meet the needs of developers and end users.

As stated on its Web site, “the mission of the SVG Working Group is to continue the evolution of Scalable Vector Graphics as a format and a platform, and enhance the adoption and usability of SVG in combination with other technologies.” We recognize that vector graphics are an important component of the next generation Web platform. As evidenced by our ongoing involvement in W3C working groups, we are committed to participating in the standards process to help ensure a healthy future for the Web. Our involvement with the SVG working group builds on that commitment.

To date, I have had several interactions with the SVG working group, and their clear dedication to creating a great technology for end users and developers alike stands out.  I personally look forward to future and more direct involvement with this great set of folks.

Patrick Dengler
Senior Program Manager
Internet Explorer Team

Comments

  • Anonymous
    January 01, 2003
    This has to be the most laughable thing I've heard in a while.

  • Anonymous
    January 01, 2003
    @John A. Bilicki III: except the 3 weeks thing was a lie.

  • Anonymous
    January 01, 2003
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  • Anonymous
    January 01, 2003
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    January 01, 2003
    »I'm sure demand for MathML is low compared to SVG, but there are people who use math beyond basic arithmetic, do you know?« There are already too many geeks and eggheads running around, no need to support them any more. Microsoft would do better by improving the multimedia and DRM functions of IE and Silverlight so that the user can enjoy more content while being in a securing bubble.

  • Anonymous
    January 01, 2003
    Well, they are st**id capitalists, they wonna give up. The only thing they want is to try to earn money.

  • Anonymous
    January 01, 2003
    I wonder just how many comments Microsoft has deleted by now.

  • Anonymous
    January 01, 2003
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  • Anonymous
    January 01, 2003
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    January 05, 2010
    woah does this mean the IE team is planning to include SVG in a future version of IE? very interesting indeed

  • Anonymous
    January 05, 2010
    woah does this mean the IE team is planning to include SVG in a future version of IE? very interesting indeed

  • Anonymous
    January 05, 2010
    Well done to Microsoft. SVG support is brilliant and something to be proud of.

  • Anonymous
    January 05, 2010
    OK - that's really cool. Let's hope IE support is to follow.

  • Anonymous
    January 05, 2010
    Thats nice!!...hope IE9 will surpass other browsers in market (loading pages with speed)..hope directx support for writing text etc will give IE9 a real boost! nice to hear these before Mix conference (show us some technical preview!!)

  • Anonymous
    January 05, 2010
    Nice to see that Microsoft wants to be a team player instead of doing it everything "my way or the highway".

  • Anonymous
    January 05, 2010
    It's about time. Hopefully we'll see some SVG in IE9 then, since, you got to admit it yourself, you've been behind in overall web standards support since IE6. The same with speed and customizability. Your browser is still far away from your competitors, but at least you are putting in some serious effort here for IE9. Unfortunately, when IE9 is finally released, the other browsers will probably be far from you again. Well, I will personally never use IE again, for two reasons.

  1. I don't like it. To me, it appears to be the worst in most categories.
  2. I use Mac OS X, you don't even support that OS any more. Still, good luck with IE9. Hopefully you'll get far enough to put some pressure on other browser makers.
  • Anonymous
    January 05, 2010
    So have you dropped Trident yet? Webkit is waiting ... Come on! Just adopt Webkit and make our lives easier. :(

  • Anonymous
    January 05, 2010
    Great news if this leads to SVG support in IE sometime in the not too distant future.  Long overdue, in my opinion.

  • Anonymous
    January 05, 2010
    Ok, my previous post made me feel a bit mean. It's (probably) not your fault that the old IE-team was cancelled, which, after six years made your browser "old" in several aspects. You are doing a good work in catching up, and as I said before, I wish you good luck and I hope that you put some pressure on the other browser makers (but considering your current Acid3 score and SVG support (which is absolutely nothing), I have my doubts).

  • Anonymous
    January 05, 2010
    I've long had a love/hate relationship with SVG, but frankly more interoperability is -never- a bad thing.  If Microsoft and particularly the IE team is interesting in developing an SVG implementation, I am happy, because vector graphics on the Web are awesome, even if SVG is a less-than-ideal solution. Of course joining the working group doesn't mean an implementation will in fact happen, but I imagine it's a safe assumption that the -intention- is there.  So, good luck, guys!  You've been doing great work so far, and I expect more or the same---or else! ;)  

  • Anonymous
    January 05, 2010
    I have a customer who uses Internet Explorer 8. Every time they shutdown their computer IE loses their login information. The only way they can keep from losing that information is by putting the computer in standby. Any suggestions? I have tried removing any and all toolbars, running IE without plug-ins enabled, and I have checked the AutoComplete settings. IE was restored to default settings as well.

  • Anonymous
    January 05, 2010
    Follow updates about the 'Semantic Web' and 'Internet of Things' http://bit.ly/6ojpng The world government global database http://bit.ly/4JUj3y

  • Anonymous
    January 05, 2010
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  • Anonymous
    January 05, 2010
    Forget about joining groups Just implement the standard in your browser ( IE )! Please, would you do it?

  • Anonymous
    January 05, 2010
    I don't think I've ever seen an IEBlog comment thread go this long without someone whining about rounded corners. You must be on to something!

  • Anonymous
    January 05, 2010
    Let's see how long it takes Microsoft to gum up that working group and bring it to a screeching halt. Plan on showing up for any meetings? Or are you only planning on fighting all the work that went on before you like you did on Javascript and HTML5?

  • Anonymous
    January 05, 2010
    This hints at IE9 SVG support... if not... a major PR blunder by not clarifying it won't make it in.

  • Anonymous
    January 05, 2010
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  • Anonymous
    January 05, 2010
    While late to the party I'm happy to see this happen. I doubt this would be announced unless at least a decent amount of SVG support is planned to make it in to IE9. It was mentioned that with the initial preview of IE9 that the progress made had been achieved in three weeks worth of work...so I think most level-headed people would agree if we were to have gotten CSS3 selectors in IE8 had the release date been pushed by a few weeks that it would have been worth it in the long term. I would recommemnd taking that in to consideration when talking about the final goals for IE9. It's going to be an exciting release...I just hope you folks will cover all the bases within reason.

  • Anonymous
    January 05, 2010
    Huzzah! I can only assume this bodes well for SVG support in upcoming IE browsers.. if this is indeed the case, then thank you for helping keep the web moving forward

  • Anonymous
    January 05, 2010
    Well done! Now for the next step.... SVG support for IE!

  • Anonymous
    January 05, 2010
    This is good news! Please support it in IE9!

  • Anonymous
    January 05, 2010
    Now that's what I'm talking about. Great news.

  • Anonymous
    January 05, 2010
    It seems to me that someone here in the thread forget that MS is the originator from the SVG predecessor VML. It's not really true that MS is "behind" other browser, in opposite. (Btw, AJAX come firstly from MS too). The only bad luck for MS is that all this developments was canceled from W3C. I welcome that MS will follow "standards" in the future, but please don't wait for W3C only, bring in your own ideas too.

  • Anonymous
    January 05, 2010
    EMF and VML ought to be enough for anybody.

  • Anonymous
    January 05, 2010
    Hi, Patrick- On behalf of the SVG WG, let me welcome you to the group.  We're excited by your joining, and look forward to your participation... and hopefully SVG support in IE9! There is definitely room for improvement in the SVG specs, and some new features to make it even easier to author... your help there will be really valuable. -Doug (W3C Team Contact for the SVG WG)

  • Anonymous
    January 05, 2010
    Direct2D accelerated SVG? Yes please!

  • Anonymous
    January 05, 2010
    Nah, just joking, I am really happy to be able to use SVG to be able to use SVG on my websites in approximately 20 years time (mind the time until the release of IE 10 [IE-X] and the time it takes for abandoning previous IE versions [think of IE 6])

  • Anonymous
    January 05, 2010
    Using the Adobe plug-in is a pain, but it gets the basics right. Here's hoping that IE won't do another CSS quality implementation.

  • Anonymous
    January 05, 2010
    A question for Patrick Dengler:  Patrick, are you allowed to implement SVG in IE9 if you want to, or would that require permission from a manager above your group?  If the decision is yours to make, have you already made it?  If not, what considerations do you have for this decision?

  • Anonymous
    January 05, 2010
    This is GREAT news and I'm excited to find out how MS is going to implement SVG in upcoming releases of IE!! Fantastic!!

  • Anonymous
    January 05, 2010
    Yes we really need embedded SVG image support for accessibility work that use symbols (e.g for communications or reading support). Bring it on! I want to see this page work on IE and we can drop sad old wmf support - http://straight-street.com/apitest.html

  • Anonymous
    January 05, 2010
    If they did this sooner they wouldn't be so far behind in standards.. unfortunately its to late for IE8, if they'd at least have an auto update feature for their browser the web wouldn't been so bad right now.

  • Anonymous
    January 05, 2010
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  • Anonymous
    January 05, 2010
    How will work on SilverLight (a competing, closed Vector technology) align with work on SVG?

  • Anonymous
    January 05, 2010
    I recommend that you do not speak in "manager style" as this blog is meant to appeal to developers. Do not say empty phrases like "As a part of Microsoft’s continued commitment to interoperability and standards support".

  • Anonymous
    January 05, 2010
    It doesn't matter. By the time IE implements this no one will be using IE.

  • Anonymous
    January 06, 2010
    Any chance to SVG graphics rendered in future Outlook versions?

  • Anonymous
    January 06, 2010
    @Gabirel Nagmay exactly, get it working in IE soonest

  • Anonymous
    January 06, 2010
    Microsoft has already implemented SVG, they call it XAML, it's part of SilVerliGht.  The rules are the same, but the names of the elements and the attributes are changed to make it proprietary. So, to implement SVG, all they probably have to do is change the names of the elements and attrs in XAML to those in the spec, and voila!

  • Anonymous
    January 06, 2010
    Wow, this is good news! No matter what comes of this (hopefully SVG support in IE), it is good news that MS at least recognizes SVG.

  • Anonymous
    January 06, 2010
    "Top 8 Browser Versions from 30 Dec 09 to 5 Jan 10 | StatCounter Global Stats" --- http://gs.statcounter.com/#browser_version-ww-daily-20091230-20100105-bar

  • Anonymous
    January 06, 2010
    Have I died and gone to SVG heaven?

  • Anonymous
    January 06, 2010
    Just slightly confused... the original vector graphics WG at W3C was started by Microsoft (I did so personally).  VML was our initial proposal for that work.  You might better characterize this as rejoining an effort that Microsoft actually helped launch.

  • Anonymous
    January 06, 2010
    @TR Reardon... Yes, we all realize that Microsoft then road off upon XAML the camel toward SilverLight. I'm hopeful the excursion has provided Microsoft with some good experience and great talent that will take SVG to a grand next version.

  • Anonymous
    January 06, 2010
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  • Anonymous
    January 06, 2010
    I guess being humiliated by google (svgweb, excanvas, chrome frame and gears) is finally kicking MS into action.  Hopefully the other great standards ignored by IE will get implemented in IE 9 also, namely CANVAS. Guido

  • Anonymous
    January 06, 2010
    Why? So you can include your patents in it? I think we all remember OOXML.

  • Anonymous
    January 06, 2010
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  • Anonymous
    January 06, 2010
    It is too bad that companies like Mozilla, Google and Apple have decided to ignore the benefits of VML and standardize on an inferior technology.  Thankfully it is clear now that Microsoft is committed to delivering the best end user experience no matter what.  Thank you once again Microsoft!

  • Anonymous
    January 06, 2010
    Embrace, extend and extinguish. It's the same story again and again, do you remember browser incompatibilities with activeX, breaking Java's portability, the "help" they give to develop OpenGL, the ODF support in MS Office, etc.

  • Anonymous
    January 06, 2010
    Just focus on support for HTML 5 Canvas, please?

  • Anonymous
    January 06, 2010
    Bla bla bla - call me when there is not-MS-extended native SVG support in IE... in other words never :)

  • Anonymous
    January 06, 2010
    Please. just. stop. Seriously.  Please don't make IE 9, SVG, or any of this.  I already have to support 3 of your browsers (yes, some people still use IE 6), I really don't want to add #4.  The worst part is that writing standard xhtml means my code already works in every other browser with few or no changes (Safari, Chrome, Firefox, and Opera), and then there's IE.  You have cost my customers many thousands of dollars.  I'm at the point where I no longer go back and make things work in IE6, it's just not worth it. You will never catch up to any of the other four browsers listed above.  Never.  If it were possible, you would have done it by now.  While you're working on improving yours to be as good as those, they're all working to make theirs better.  Most of them have a 5+ year lead on you.  It's like showing up at 3PM and trying to win the Indy 500.  Ain't. Gonna. Happen. Firefox is open source - why not swallow your pride and start working on it instead?

  • Anonymous
    January 06, 2010
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  • Anonymous
    January 06, 2010
    Like other posters, I am worried that the IE group will be forced to implement proprietary, patent-protected MS extensions in their version of SVG, thus preventing interoperability. I am persuaded that the MS IE developers are well meaning, but unfortunately, they don't call the shots.

  • Anonymous
    January 06, 2010
    Patrick said: "[..]we submitted our request to join the Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) Working Group[...]" This sounds like Obama getting the Peace Nobel prize. :-) Please support seriously SVG in IE, and then talk about "continued commitment to interoperability and standards support...". Am i asking too much?

  • Anonymous
    January 06, 2010
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  • Anonymous
    January 06, 2010
    This is great news. Like others, if this leads to Canvas support in IE, that would be wonderful and make IE easier to recommend.

  • Anonymous
    January 06, 2010
    We need it urgently in IE 8, and I need to contact the team who will work in that project to test and feed them back with the results.

  • Anonymous
    January 06, 2010
    Great news. But please Microsoft people, make it smart by thinking about backwards compatibility with (IE6,) IE7 and IE8. As an add-on or a patch? @Michael Chaney: I fully agree with your post.

  • Anonymous
    January 06, 2010
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  • Anonymous
    January 06, 2010
    you have to add the update svg in IE 6, 7 , and 8. cause a lot of users still working with IE 6 and 7. Thanks

  • Anonymous
    January 06, 2010
    You do not need to join any groups, because they worked fine without you for years. Just implement the specifications, that's enough.

  • Anonymous
    January 06, 2010
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  • Anonymous
    January 06, 2010
    SVG is what, 10 years old... How about WebGL while you're at it?

  • Anonymous
    January 06, 2010
    Hi everyone, I applaud this move and look forward to see more SVG-related Microsoft activity. I'm aware of the recent stuff (SVG Open 2009, www-svg mailing list, etc.) and hope that this can get materialized into an upcoming Internet Explorer release. ;-) I just don't yet make a full thumbs up yet, given the attitude Microsoft has had (regarding SVG support) up until now. I guess this time you'll are the ones "needing" (read: invited) to convince this fast growing community that you actually want to make part of the game. :-) Cheers, Helder

  • Anonymous
    January 07, 2010
    To those correctly pointing out that Microsoft has done great work bringing Vector graphics to the web: So what? Unless everybody can agree to support the technology cross-browser, who cares? I don't think any web developers who have to use countless compatibility libraries and extra man hours to create IE-specific tweaks think to themselves, "well, even though I can't use SVG in IE, at least they helped found the Working Group that started it! I feel so much better!!!". Uhh. No. Kudos for the innovation. But if I create a really awesome new train car that runs on tracks that are 4 ft wide, and everybody else is running 5 ft wide trains, does that really do anybody any good? No.

  • Anonymous
    January 07, 2010
    This announcement is hopeful news. In addition to support for CSS3 and SVG, I hope IE9 supports XSLT 1.0, HTML5 (including Canvas), Animated PNG format, and more.

  • Anonymous
    January 07, 2010
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  • Anonymous
    January 07, 2010
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  • Anonymous
    January 07, 2010
    woot! we might get it standardized like the "body" tag :D

  • Anonymous
    January 07, 2010
    Lance, for a guy interested in MathML, you aren't very good with numbers. There are ~1B users of Windows. Nearly 0% of all users have any need for MathML support.

  • Anonymous
    January 07, 2010
    Whaa. After 4 years, IE will finally include SVG... Well, just have also to include the W3C standards. FF and chrome do much better than IE. You have to get up !!

  • Anonymous
    January 07, 2010
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  • Anonymous
    January 07, 2010
    Good news MS.  Thanks for forward effort in supporting web standards. I hope that IE8 will be optimized to run on low end XP netbooks.  IE8 would them be the final browser on our older legacy lower end XP computers until the last one is retired (maybe in late 2012).

  • Anonymous
    January 07, 2010
    @Mitch: seems like you skipped the second part of my message. :p As for your comment on display: run-in, I guess I'd rather just use the :before pseudo-class to achieve that.

  • Anonymous
    January 07, 2010
    I'm cautiously optimistic about this.  I hope this means that we will be seeing proper support for XHTML with XML name spaces.  I look forward to seeing SVG support in IE.  The lack of support from IE has been the main obstacle to the success of SVG. I do worry, as do many others, that Microsoft will introduce extensions, which other browsers won't have, in order to make SVG pages developed for IE inoperable with other browsers.  It's a tactic that Microsoft has used before and it could make SVG a bad thing.  I hope they don't do this. If they want to mess with the other browsers SVG, I recommend that they do a complete and accurate standards compliant implementation, so that the only SVG that works with IE but breaks on other browsers are things that find those browsers failings in standards compliance. I also worry that merely being on the working group won't translate to IE supporting SVG.  Microsoft was on some of the XHTML working groups (maybe all?  I can't remember), for all that was worth. As for MathML, if SVG is implemented properly, then MathML should not be too difficult to add (relatively speaking).  It would certainly please a lot of math, physics and engineering instructors and benefit their students.  I realize that it's a relatively small market but it would still be nice.

  • Anonymous
    January 07, 2010
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  • Anonymous
    January 07, 2010
    Don't you ever give up? According to StatCounter Global Stats, your browser (all versions combined) is already completely irrelevant in Germany and soon in all of Europe. Please take it off the market and make our lives easier! You helped standardize SVG and then stubbornly kept on implementing VML, even put it into Your failed Office format (6000 pages, and counting!). Your company has lost any credibility! Please leave SVG alone! Adobe, IBM, Opera, Mozilla, Apple and Google made it a success. What is Your contribution? Will there be any?

  • Anonymous
    January 07, 2010
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  • Anonymous
    January 07, 2010
    Funny, all browsers are currently funded by stupid capitalists (Apple, Google, Microsoft, Opera) It turns out that communism doesn't work. Maybe you fell asleep for the latter half of the 20th century?

  • Anonymous
    January 07, 2010
    "Even if IE wasn't using Trident, they'd probably move to Gecko" I don't think they will choose Gecko. Webkit is more advanced than Gecko , specially regarding Canvas and html5 new features.

  • Anonymous
    January 07, 2010
    @Stifu: argh! right! I skipped it! That's what one gets from juggling between 2 screens and 4 workspaces - one only gets one half of what's displayed. My bad.

  • Anonymous
    January 07, 2010
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  • Anonymous
    January 07, 2010
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    January 07, 2010
    VML it's the dream ! http://nitroblog.mediasites.fr/nitroblog/ demo : http://www.mediasites.fr/bonne_annee_2010.php

  • Anonymous
    January 07, 2010
    @nitro: enjoy your dying, poorly supported technology.

  • Anonymous
    January 08, 2010
    @stifu: "And even if SVG isn't backported to IE6-8, the SVG Web library (http://code.google.com/p/svgweb/) can nicely close the gap until these browsers die. By the way, forget VML exists, it just doesn't matter." Great - another 60K+ js library to pollute web pages with. Easy for developers, but dreadful for end user experience, particularly if they don't have DSL or equivalent. And who is to guarantee that it will be supported properly in the long term?  As it is, svgweb claims to be an "alpha" release, so I really couldn't recommend it to any of my customers anyway. What we really need is for IE9 to support SVG, xhtml, css 3 (or the parts of it which are already clearly defined), html5 (or, again the parts of it which are already clearly defined, e.g. canvas), hey and @font-face with woff, too (dream on...). And then we need IE versions 6 - 8 to die quickly. I think IE6 and IE7 will cease to be important for most of my clients by the end of 2010 (Q3 if we're lucky), but IE8 will have 40% market share by then... I suppose that SVG will have to wait for 2012 or so, before it can really be used for mainstream websites and applications.

  • Anonymous
    January 08, 2010
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  • Anonymous
    January 08, 2010
    @Paul: it's a given using a lib won't be as good as a native implementation, and that IE users will likely have an inferior experience (they're free to upgrade if they're bothered), but it's still better than nothing. Besides, Google is behind that lib, which guarantees it'll get decent support. You don't have to use it if you don't want to.

  • Anonymous
    January 08, 2010
    I still don't get why IE doesn't just use Webkit, and its insulting to be called a "troll" by providing what is actually a really logical thing. Using Webkit: (1) Is really easy and cost effective. You don't need to have a team of people costing millions of dollars per year updating Trident. What is the point, doesn't Microsoft have better projects to work on that they can use these developers for? (2) Webkit will instantly improve web standards in IE (including SVG and Canvas). (3) Makes web developers lives easier. (4) Most of the web already works with Webkit. (5) Continue to support Trident as a backcompat option / plugin. You can add D2D support to Webkit and as a result all Webkit web browsers will run excellent on Windows.

  • Anonymous
    January 08, 2010
    After 40+ years in the industry, much of it working with and on standards committees, the old adage still rings true: "The best way to manipulate a standard for your own purposes is to join the standards committee - preferable volunteering for the position of secretary - no one likes that job, and whatever the minutes say becomes what 'happened' and can be used to justify whatever you want to have happened". I watched the likes of IBM, Sun, and others do exactly that time and time again...

  • Anonymous
    January 08, 2010
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  • Anonymous
    January 09, 2010
    Microsoft continues its charade of caring about getting W3C specs right and deleting, er, I mean engaging with others. Did I mention how laughable this is?

  • Anonymous
    January 10, 2010
    I am really looking forward SVG support in IE9. We have been stuck for years with FF just because of that :-)

  • Anonymous
    January 10, 2010
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  • Anonymous
    January 10, 2010
    NilX - you don't have to write proprietary code with SVG Web, you just write plain SVG and it works.  That's the point.  If IE9 comes out with SVG support your code will still work in that browser without SVGWeb and you have zero work to do.

  • Anonymous
    January 10, 2010
    Thats is great to hear microsoft has join svg workgroup, just keep going microsoft, thanks for letting us now, i hope you are going to do more in this year.

  • Anonymous
    January 10, 2010
    Wow, please make IE support this ASAP.

  • Anonymous
    January 11, 2010
    Look at this ! CSS3 - HTML5 http://www.mediasites.fr/boutons_vml.php http://nitroblog.mediasites.fr/nitroblog/post/index/61/Cest-pour-demain

  • Anonymous
    January 11, 2010
    @nitro Look at this!!! http://www.chromeexperiments.com/ Much better :)

  • Anonymous
    January 11, 2010
    great news. I hope the MS contribution to SVG is positive, cooperative and  truly interoperable and implemented! and that  tactics like those used around OOXML are left in the past

  • Anonymous
    January 11, 2010
    @nitro: even MS declared VML as deprecated and kept for compatibility reasons only (citing MSO-OXML ISO-29500), meaning it has seen no improvement since 1999. SVG was built as a superset of VML's functionalities with an XML compatible syntax. Which doesn't make it unable to do nice stuff, the same way you can still make nice websites using tag soup in Netscape 4.

  • Anonymous
    January 12, 2010
    Until IE9/Next does support SVG and Canvas and all the nice HTML5 stuff - can the Google Frame addon provide access to all of the good stuff?  If so, please do not rush your implementation - make sure it is solid before releasing it. Jake

  • Anonymous
    January 13, 2010
    While SVG support in IE would, of course, be lovely (so late as to be almost pointless, but lovely nonetheless), I can't help but wonder if anyone else here remembers what happened the last time the IE team tried to stick their fingers into web standardization--we got the execrable X-UA-Compatible proposal. I have very, very low expectations. After spending nearly a decade destroying hopes for an open and interoperable web and makign the lives of designers absolutely miserable, wasting likely millions of man-hours of labor in interminable compatibility testing... we're to believe that there's been a change of heart. I am preparing for disappointment.

  • Anonymous
    January 13, 2010
    @grendelkhan: X-UA-Compatible isn't execrable. That meta-tag has the merit:

  • of following standards for generic syntax
  • of following agreed-on practices for proprietary extensions
  • of not being actually needed as long as you program your website correctly: its use is limited to removing the compatibility button if your page uses valid code. Right now, it presents an advantage:
  • you can override site-wide server headers, zone policy and the MS-maintained compatibility list with it
  • as a meta tag, it is completely transparent to UAs that could care less about it. It was making it a required code snippet for IE's better mode that stank. Fortunately that lousy idea was overturned. For me, it ranks up there with conditional comments: don't use it if you don't want it, but they make correcting IE's failings much easier.
  • Anonymous
    January 13, 2010
    @Mitch: Well explained, thank you.

  • Anonymous
    January 15, 2010
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  • Anonymous
    January 16, 2010
    @ Patrick Dengler [MSFT] Joining the SVG Working Group is one thing. Actually implementing correctly and completely SVG 1.1 into IE 9 is another which requires huge investment, dedicated efforts, maintained perseverance, budget, etc. Fixing known, reproducible, testcase-ed SVG support bugs and actually fixing/correcting SVG implementation bugs is another. This is exactly and precisely where Microsoft, in the previous decade, has proven to be weak, erratic, double-talking, inconsistent, "all-show-but-no-go", unreliable, inconsequent, incoherent and not trustworthy (eg security bugs, HTML 4, CSS 2.x, DHTML, DOM 2, UAAG, ECMAScript). Catching all other SVG-capable browsers out there www.codedread.com/svg-support.php is another. Like others have said, IE is probably 6 years behind every other browser out there. @ Mitch 74 >  I wonder, what part of CSS 2.1 isn't Firefox supporting correctly? developer.mozilla.org/en/Mozilla_CSS_support_chart says display: run-in, page-break-*, widows, orphans, @page and there are bugs too. > LONGDESC is not supported in IE at all. Well, there is support of it in IE8. "The target of the longDesc attribute is now displayed as the tooltip, if present; otherwise, the title is displayed." msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms534132(VS.85).aspx regards, Gérard Talbot

  • Anonymous
    January 16, 2010
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  • Anonymous
    January 16, 2010
    Gérard, for a smart guy, you sure waste a lot of time typing up little rants in a web forum that almost no one will ever bother to read. Real web developers build sites for real use and can't live in an ivory tower. Ivory tower web designers, on the other hand, aren't hanging out on the IE blog. Do you really have nothing better to do with your time than stamp your feet here?

  • Anonymous
    January 17, 2010
    Microsoft has joined SVG Working Group? Cool! That means will have native SVG support in Internet Explorer 23 or 24. Yaaaaaaaaay!

  • Anonymous
    January 18, 2010
    "Microsoft’s continued commitment to interoperability and standards support" ... is that a joke?