Adobe tests Acrobat switch to SVG

Looking at things again in a new year it seems ever more likely that Mars is a major development that should get a lot more attention. I am thinking of writing a story for OhmyNews with the headline suggested as the heading for this post. The editors often change this and they may not accept a story at this time as I don't have enough detailed information.

Mars is mostly SVG for display, and XML for context. I found an excellent Shockwave file on one of the FLEX sites. See post. Flexlive.net seems to be written by zee.yang. My question is why it is a FLEX site that has this explanation of Mars that makes more sense than anything else. Maybe Adobe energy is such that more people think about Flex to start with.

Anyway, I have followed the advice in the video and opened a Mars file in WinZip (any zip software will do). There is a directory for pages and a subdirectory for each page. Most of the content seems to be in a SVG file.





So this seems to be pretty much the direction discussed at Seybold Amsterdam and other places. The SVG is static but it can load ok in an SVG viewer.



So why is the Mars launch so limited? My own opinion is that the Connect push for video subscriptions may not work out. The XML and SVG aspects are much more interesting for the people who already use PDF.

Maybe Adobe are just testing this to see what interest there is.

If it stays with standard XML and SVG there are ways to connect with open source. My impression is that open source is mentioned alongside Flex but not so often with LiveCycle. Maybe Mars has too much potential for XML fans and the current products are expected to continue for a while longer.

If Adobe stated clearly that converting in Acrobat 8 to Mars effectively turns Acrobat into an SVG viewer, would this effect the perception of Flash for mobiles? Mars SVG is static but presumably if SVG got a boost then the animated potential would still be there.

Any other comments welcome.