If it was JPG or PNG, you could not select the text, embed links, or reuse parts of the page. And nobody could copy the source code to make the web a better place.
When someone says that SVG is just a big image — well, that is not always the case.
We have gone to great lengths to preserve text as text, to preserve images as images, and to use regular links.
That is why we require Adobe Illustrator — it's the only SVG-capable editor that allows for real text and images.
If you look at the source for a Svija page, it's a mess — but it does look like web page source.
> If it was JPG or PNG, you could not select the text,
Maybe not select the text, but images has always had “alt” and “title” attributes.
> embed links,
Even HTML 2 (RFC 1866¹ from 1995) had image maps, and HTML3.2 implemented client-side image maps (RFC 1980²).
> or reuse parts of the page.
It’s an image, anyone can just screenshot it or download the image file, and then crop it.
> And nobody could copy the source code to make the web a better place.
How is this hypothetical page using Javascript and images better, in this aspect, than an SVG-based one?
The huge drawback which this kind of hypothetical image page has, compared to a page made with SVG, is that pixel-based images do not scale well with increasing resolutions.
By reuse parts of the page, I meant more that on a website where each page has the same 20 images, they don't have to be loaded by the browser after the first page because they're cached.
I don't think I'll be able to convince you that our idea has much merit, but I really do appreciate your willingness to share your thoughts.
