Re: SVG stuffz: IE9 gradient support
Reply #2 –
Yeah but it's hardly bloated, is it? IE8 should get the basic look, because it can't even support any css3 at all. IE9 and Safair, maybe not so basic. Gradients are the only thing the theme needs that they don't do.
Re: SVG stuffz: IE9 gradient support
Reply #3 –
K, after sleeping on it I'm now thinking that although SVG is rather cool in some ways, it doesn't make sense as a fallback for IE9 and Safari. Why not? Because SVG sprites are rather complex suckers to code, so for n00bability it would have to be done in separate images for each gradient required.
OTOH, if we were to provide a fallback, it could be done with one simple PNG sprite of around 1 or 2kb, which is less bytes than the SVG fallbacks would need, and would be easy for anyone to edit in PS or GIMP. It would only take one HTTP request to grab the thing, and it would provide a fallback for IE8 as well as IE9. So, one basic PNG sprite makes more sense in this situation.
Yeah, I know: bloat ya reckon. Having gone through SMF 2.0 dev cycle, where I had to make everything work in IE6 and IE7, in RTL languages as well as LTR, without breaking better browsers, a 1kb sprite fallback for three basically sound browsers is pure luxury. It will add maybe six lines of CSS to the stylesheet. Maybe less.
Realistically, it would also substantially broaden Elk's market appeal, which is worth bearing in mind.
ETA: Just whipped up a test sprite in Photoshop (not for actual use, as the colours are random gradients from PS).
Image is 1x600, which would be about right, with six gradients on it. Compresses down to 1034 bytes and looks perfect.
Re: SVG stuffz: IE9 gradient support
Reply #6 –
Oh I don't either, but the point is that if we serve svg gradients we can cover everyone, and if we're going to shiv IE8 anyway might as well shiv it a little more so it looks better. No real problem for us, and might amuse some cave dwellers.
Anyway, really it comes down to whether we want to serve up CSS3 gradients (probably easier for n00bs to alter) or .svg images (will cover all browsers, but probably a bit more intimidating for n00bs). I'm just thinking about it all, since the CSS is far from finalised anyway and we can do what we like.