VML means Vector Markup Language. Yes, you can now draw lines and other shapes in your internet pages. You can also rotate these. You can also have fill gradients. You can even have bitmap manipulation with various filters like contrast. VML as of now is just a proposed standard. MS plans to have some export possibilities for future Office releases.
VML is held in XML syntax. That is, you can either end the first tag with a slash or you have to write a second, closing tag to complete the element, even if it's empty. The following sample page shows several shapes:
xmlns:v="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:vml"><head><title>
VML</title>
<object id=VMLRender
classid="CLSID:10072CEC-8CC1-11D1-986E-00A0C955B42E"></object>
<style>v\:* {behavior:url(#VMLRender);}
.def { width: 100px; height: 50px }
</style>
</head><body>
<v:oval style="width: 100pt; height: 50pt; rotation: 30"
fillcolor="#acc"></v:oval>
<br><br>
<v:rect style="width:100pt; height:50pt" strokecolor="#aca"
strokeweight="3.5pt" fillcolor="#caa"/>
<br><br>
<v:roundrect style="width:100pt; height:50pt" arcsize="0.3"
strokecolor="#666" strokeweight="4pt"/>
<br><br>
<v:line from="0,10pt" to="100pt,30pt" strokecolor="#acc"
strokeweight="3pt"/>
<br><br>
<v:polyline style="flip: y"
points="18pt,54pt,90pt,9pt,180pt,63pt,261pt,27pt" strokecolor="#555"
strokeweight="3pt" />
<br><br><br><br><br><br>
<v:curve style="position:absolute" from="0,0"
control1="100pt,100pt" control2="200pt,100pt" to="300pt,0"
strokecolor="#abc" strokeweight="3pt"/>
<br><br><br><br><br><br>
<v:arc style="width:100pt;height:100pt" startangle="0"
endangle="90" strokecolor="#036" strokeweight="2pt"/>
<v:arc style="width:100pt;height:100pt" startangle="0"
endangle="270" strokecolor="#036" strokeweight="2pt"/>
</body></html>
Animation sample
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A VML sample page showing the dynamic altering of some VML values. It's a sunset with color and position changes. A small error happened first as the bitmapped star-background seems to have been anti-aliased against the transparent color.
Continue with: XML/XSL.
