- Will an FXG “thing” be addressible at the object instance (e.g. can you script animation by accessing elements with an “id” and manipulating their properties)? To me, this would be a HUGE must-have and would also open Flex/Flash up to a whole new class of applications.

- Why not also address a few of the deficiencies/missing items in SVG while defining the FXG spec? Notably, an arc and wedge object, which required massive mental math and should be a declarative object.

- Will FXG support binding much like Flex elements can? Stated differently, could the color of a rectangle be defined via a {expression}?

- Will it be possible to dynamically instantiate/create objects and add them to an FXG object (e.g. can I create a new rectangle on the fly and add it and have it rendered)?

Looks quite promising!

Rick

This is actually covered in the specification:

http://opensource.adobe.com/wiki/display/flexsdk/FXG+1.0+Specification

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FXG vs SVG
When initial work on an XML-based graphics interchange format began, the natural first thought was to use SVG. However, there are key differences between SVG and Flash Player’s graphics capabilities. These include core differences in SVG and Flash’s rendering model with regards to filters, transforms and text. Additionally, the interchange format needed to be able to support future Flash Player features, which would not necessarily map to SVG features. As such, the decision was made to go with a new interchange format, FXG, instead of having a non-standard implementation of SVG. FXG does borrow from SVG whenever possible.

It is important to note that this specification follows much of the SVG specification format organization as well as copying related concept prose. The SVG specification is available at http://www.w3.org/TR/SVG/.
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mike chambers

mesh@adobe.com

I see your point Mattias, but I imagine that FXG will model the functionality of Flash-Player, and as such not all of the other formats mentioned will fit the model as closely as a custom one. I’m sure adobe could have written a sub-set of say SVG, but then we’d just end up with a non-standard SVG implementation, or a full implementation with missing features from the Flash player APIs.

this could also be totally wrong. But, it’s the answer I gave myself when I first heard of FXG and asked myself the very question you are asking here.

Be interesting to know if this is the case, and if so what are the areas that FXG handles for the Player APIs that wouldn’t have not been so fully covered by SVG for example.

again, I may be way off here and there may be no reason what so ever for a new format, but a doubt they’d have gone to the trouble.

cheers

glenn
tinylion development uk