[oats-sig] SVG Open 2007: Pictograms with Natural Language Based and Semantic Information

Steve,

authoring is a complex subject...
Why are there no easy to use authoring tools?
There W3C specifications are a significant hurdle, as are the  
implementations:

did you read or listen to my recent talk to CETIS Accessibility SIG?
"Putting the User at the heart of the W3C process"
http://wiki.cetis.ac.uk/Putting_the_User_at_the_Heart_of_the_W3C_Process

I conceived and planned the authoring tool "Chalk"
http://www.peepo.co.uk/peepo2/authoringTool.html

Everything on peepo is hand-coded
I'm currently developing a new Web 1.9999 portal ie with live SVG  
graphics for news, weather etc.
However this has been voluntary since 1994.....

best wishes

Jonathan Chetwynd
Accessibility Consultant on Media Literacy and the Internet

Publishers that might be interested in such projects include:

widgit symbols are authored in SVG possibly using Adobe Illustrator.
However they are distributed in other formats, the Met office also  
uses this process for copyright reasons.
http://www.widgit.com/products/inprint/index.htm

also Clicker:
http://www.cricksoft.com/uk/products/clicker/

inkscape is a complicated tool that produces verbose code
I have filed enhancement requests without result as yet ~:"

it's essential the code is simple and easy to read, and thus edit.
though sometimes I do lose sight of this for particular reasons.