Google does SVG for IE ... with Flash

From Slashdot:

"Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) is in most graphical tools. It is used heavily in many big projects, such as KDE and Wikipedia. But Internet Explorer's lack of built-in support for SVG was keeping it away from mainstream use on the web. Google is fixing that now with a JavaScript drop-in named SVGWeb. They've posted a quick, one-minute overview, a longer and more detailed presentation, and you can read about it on the project page."

Read the comments.

I wondered what clever trick they could possibly be doing to have JavaScript represent SVG in IE. Canvas? ActiveX? SilverLight? .NET? Nope: Flash of course. If your browser has decent native SVG support (read: basically all browsers except Microsoft's) then their snippet simply falls back on that. Otherwise it pumps all of that into Flash and does a remarkably good job.

I think the idea is fantastic and it tickles me pink that Google is using one proprietary product (Adobe's) to supplement a feature in a competing company's (Microsoft) browser. Everyone wins! Critics tend to bemoan the reliance on a plug-in, even one ubiquitous as Flash, but then they're not the ones using Internet Explorer so the complaints are moot.

In only minimally-related news (still for nerds, and it might matter), I highly recommend everyone go see District 9. My girlfriend disliked it, I loved it, but we both agree Sharlto Copley does a fantastic job as the lead character. I had no idea how important he'd end up being as I didn't read anything about the movie beforehand, and the surprise lent extra awesomeness to the experience. Also, the score is great too.