VML browser effects

I’m currently working on a project where I have a map / image and I want to allow a user to pan and zoom in order to explore. I could always put it in a PDF, but then they would need Acrobat, would have to open in a new page and wait while the plugin spluttered into action. Or I could do it in Flash. Not SEO friendly and a bit of a mission. As much as I love Flash, I always look first to see if the same thing can be done using standard web technology. I figured somebody else must have done this before, so went in search of the elusive lazy grail. And came across this crazy (no disrespect intended) German guy’s VML page.

http://www.netzgesta.de/lab/

Somehow I know about the web, but I don’t know about VML. It seems that Microsoft and Mozilla decided to develop concurrent solutions to vector graphics in browsers. Microsoft went VML (XML based) and Mozilla went SVG (CSS based). Do these people ever agree on anything? The great thing is that both technologies are natively supported. So no additional plugin needed. It seems that Apple got sick of the gridlock and started developing their own markup language known as “Canvas” for WebKit (HTML 5 spec). So now that we have these really cool imcompatible technologies, how do you code cross platform? Well, it seems that this guy has been using a Javascript library which fills the gap. And Google uses if fairly extensively in their Maps. How it all works is a bit too much for my feeble mind, but the point is that there’s a lot of things you can do, from manipulating bimaps, generating vector graphics and applying effects. And the link above wonderfully displays some great examples. So now I have my zoomy map script. I’ve just gotta figure out how to use it. (I’ll keep you posted).