Summary 183The dashed lines for the circle radius and the diagonals for the square and rect-
angle are created by the attribute stroke-dasharray, a feature that is unfortu-
nately missing in the Canvas specification. Its attribute value determines the
switch between draw line and insert space, and the switching process is repeated
until the line is finished. For more complicated patterns, any number of values
separated by commas can be entered.
Last but not least, the geometric forms square and rectangle are two rect ele-
ments with x, y, width, and height attributes, which means we have covered all
elements and attributes appearing in the SVG code of the graphics. Of course,
the same applies here as with MathML: This is just the tip of the iceberg, and
this time really just the tiniest top bit of it. Beneath, geometric shapes of all kinds
are lurking, as are mighty path drawing methods, text layouts, transformations,
freely definable coordinate systems, filters, gradients, symbols, masks, patterns,
compositing, clipping, scripting, styling, and even animations.
If you want to dive more deeply into the topic SVG, you should definitely invest
in a book on SVG. The following links offer further opportunities to start explor-
ing the topic online:
z The SVG specification: http://www.w3.org/TR/SVG11
z An SVG Primer for Today’s Browsers: http://www.w3.org/Graphics/SVG/
IG/resources/svgprimer.html
z W3C SVG Working Group: http://www.w3.org/Graphics/SVG
z Learn SVG: The Web Graphics Standard: http://www.learnsvg.com
Summary
With the arrival of IE9, all browsers finally offer native SVG support, after ten
years of vector standard. We hope the same will apply to MathML; its integration
in the HTML5 specification will play its part, just as it did with SVG. As essential
components of the new web platform, MathML, and especially SVG, will cer-
tainly play an even more important role in the future.