Comments on: TonicPoint: Ajax Powerpoint with SVG/VML

By: Ken

Ken — Mon, 25 Dec 2006 05:52:11 +0000

Flash is horribly inconsistent, as well. On some platforms it’s not available — like any 64-bit platform (not to mention several 32-bit ones). On some platforms it sucks (on my Mac it crashes surprisingly often on Flash pages).

Even if they only supported Firefox (which it sounds like is not the case), it would still only be a free download on Windows, versus a complete no-go for everybody else. To me, that’s still a win.

When you toss in the featuresets of SVG and Flash, it’s game over (seen a Flash app whose window you could resize?). SVG wins, full stop.

By: Antoine Quint

Antoine Quint — Wed, 13 Dec 2006 19:33:34 +0000

This is looking fantastic, can’t wait to see it working in the browser for real! And John, there is no need to download anything new, they obviously use whatever best technology for the user’s browser: VML in IE and SVG for Firefox and Opera.

By: Chris Nokleberg

Chris Nokleberg — Wed, 13 Dec 2006 02:44:25 +0000

Hi John, sorry if I was unclear but for the record at launch we plan to support Firefox 1.5+, Opera 9+, and IE 5.5+. So hopefully you will not need to download anything. Flash is nice and has its place but personally I feel that people should ask “why did you use flash?” more often than “why didn’t you use flash?”.

By: John Dowdell

John Dowdell — Wed, 13 Dec 2006 00:39:51 +0000

For whatever it’s worth, I’m still puzzled by the use of the “no plugins” line, when you’re substituting the download of a different browser instead.

(SVG starts with a standard specification, and has varying implementations. The Adobe Flash Player offers a near-universal standard implementation — standard playback.)

jd/adobe

By: Parag Mathur

Parag Mathur — Mon, 11 Dec 2006 22:32:00 +0000

Chris…I agree with your reasons for not using Flash. We have also created a tool that allows you paint inside the web (using VML currently only supported on IE 5.5 and higher). We are in the process of developing a VML to SVG translator for Firefox users (the opposite of what you’re doing). The true value of our product is the ability to integrate the paint with different types of content (pictures, audio, video, text, websites). Check out ZCubes (http://www.zcubes.com) for more info. Flash is very restrictive is providing these integrating capabilities. We also truly believe that the future of the web is rich apps based on vector graphics + AJAX. The accessibility and collaborative ability of web based apps is so much more powerful that desktop apps.

By: Chris Nokleberg

Chris Nokleberg — Mon, 11 Dec 2006 18:19:33 +0000

Joe, a few reasons: 1) we prefer a standards-based solution, 2) no-plugins required, 3) in our experience it is actually easier to code this way (it is just plain JS manipulating the SVG/VML DOM). Of course it is quite unfortunate that IE does not support SVG yet but that is the price you pay. In short we think vector graphics + AJAX is the future for rich web apps.

By: Shawn

Shawn — Mon, 11 Dec 2006 15:40:24 +0000

wow, so thats all done using JS/svg/xml like the xdraw app?
anyways, thanks for posting that xdraw link, thats done quite nicely as far as anti-aliasing, etc.

By: joe

joe — Sun, 10 Dec 2006 06:22:31 +0000

why did you guys choose svg/vml? Seems like it would be prettier if you guys used flash (and would work in IE).

By: Gavin Doughtie

Gavin Doughtie — Sat, 09 Dec 2006 00:38:28 +0000

This looks amazing — It’s a LOT of work to do this sort of thing, and it looks really slick. I’m jealous!

By: Dylan Schiemann

Dylan Schiemann — Sat, 09 Dec 2006 00:11:44 +0000

It reminds me of a more complete version of http://www.xdraw.org/xdhTest.html

By: Simon jia

Simon jia — Fri, 08 Dec 2006 22:31:29 +0000

Cool toy, but completely useless.
PRACTICAL vs TECHNICAL

By: Chris Nokleberg

Chris Nokleberg — Fri, 08 Dec 2006 19:05:18 +0000

Hi Karl. We understand there will be people who prefer to use PowerPoint to create their documents, which is why we provide an upload facility. There are plenty of advantages once you get your presentation online, though–sharing, search, conferences, and eventually revision management and collaborative editing.

By: Karl

Karl — Fri, 08 Dec 2006 18:38:58 +0000

why do this when we already have powerpoint? what are the advantages? (please provide something more then just being a “wep-app”)

By: Chris Nokleberg

Chris Nokleberg — Fri, 08 Dec 2006 16:42:53 +0000

Hi Idris. It is quite real but I’m not sure how to prove it to you. For the demo we intentionally patterned the look and feel after MS Office, but that will change by the time we launch. I’m sure you can spot some minor differences here and there. The screencast is of the app running in Firefox 1.5/2.0, using SVG. IE support is in the works but not quite there yet (requires SVG/VML translation layer).

By: Idris

Idris — Fri, 08 Dec 2006 16:06:08 +0000

Is this real? Seems like vaporware.. Even seems like they just made a screencast from a windows app. Can anyone verify?