SVG links

Definition

This is a links page about SVG.

Tools

Editors

• You can hand code SVG with any XML editor
• Inkscape (Inkscape targets SVG 1.1 therefore some code will not show in Adobe SVG. Also, it doesn't support SMIL animation or DOM scripting)

Navtive SVG support in web browsers

• Opera is the browser with the best native SVG support currently (oct 2007). See the SVG support in Opra 9 list. I think it's roughly SVG Basic, an SVG profile made for PDAs and that includes SMIL animation tags. SVG basic or/and SVG tiny are also supported on mobile phone versions.

• Firefox since version 1.5 includes by default a native SVG, but it does not implement SMIL animation tags. Some other static SVG features are missing too, but DOM/Javascript is implemented.

Plugins for web browers

• Adobe SVG Viewer, works with in principle with IE and Firefox, but Adobe discontinued support since they finally manage to acquire Macromedia (and Flash). Implements all of SVG 1.0.
  • Getting it to work with IE 7 is quite a nightmare. Try the procedure in Utilisateurs d'Internet Explorer 7
  • Getting it to work with Firefox (not tested lately): Downlaod the plugin or the Pre-release 6.0 Alpha. Then copy all the files from C:\Program Files\Common Files\Adobe\SVG Viewer 6.0\Plugins\* to Firefox plugin directory. Then restart Firefox. Enter the URL about:config, then enter svg in the Filter, hit return. Finally double click on the value "true". It must be false. However, I remember that Firefox crashed when I tried last time - Daniel K. Schneider 12:27, 22 October 2007 (MEST).

• Renesis, Beta 0.7 in July 2007. Download is for Win. Works standalone and as IE plugin. The SVG visualization of this wiki more or less works with Beta 0.7 + IE7. Colors are missing and SVG links don't work really. The amazing bug is however that this combo only works for embedded SVGs, not with a simple SVG file for which you have to use the standalone player (maybe some installation issue ?). Renesis in the current version doesn't seem to implement SMIL tags, hopefully they will implement these, since Firefox won't have them for a while. - Daniel K. Schneider July 2007. Update: It's now available from exmotion (but still the same) - Daniel K. Schneider

• There are other viewers, e.g.
• The X-smiles XML-browser supports SVG (uses CSIRO SVG viewer)
• CSIRO Toolkit and Pocket SVG Viewer
• Batik also includes a browser

On-line tools

• W3C Validator

Toolkits for programmers

• Batik SVG Toolkit. Note that there is also a stand-alone batik viewer
• phpHtmLLib. A set of PHP classes and library functions to help facilitate building, debugging, and rendering of XML, HTML, XHTML, WAP/WML Documents, and SVG, and complex widgets. Stable and popular - Version 2.4.0 in Feb 2004. Supports basic SVG functionality an image and a graph classe.
• SVG-TT-Graph , a popular Perl module for line graphs, bars and pies [1/2004, not tested]
• More PHP kits can be found on the web, see also our [/guides/php/examples/ php example directory]
• SVG Maker Commercial multi-format to SVG translator (not tested !)

Drawing tools with SVG export

• WebDwarf, WebDwarf V2 is Virtual Mechanics' free prototype editor for the design of Web content using HTML and SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics). Version 2 hosts a number of advanced features. (tested @ TECFA, works fine). More advanced products are commercial
• Jasc WebDraw, (commercial $200, tested @ TECFA, works. Notes: only available from the US site, be aware of stupid redirections. Free beta versions may be found in some places.)
• Inkscape. Inkscape is a free (GPL) open source SVG editor with capabilities similar to Illustrator, CorelDraw, Visio, etc. Supported SVG features include basic shapes, paths, text, alpha blending, transforms, gradients, node editing, svg-to-png export, grouping, and more (Version 0.37 on Feb 2004. Available for Win, Linux rpm, source. TESTED @ TECFA, works, exports standard SVG other.
• Catwalk for producing SVG from XML data with XSLT (not tested)
• Adobe Illustrator (can export SVG) and Adobe GoLive can add animations to it (in their source code editor only)
• Corel Draw (can export SVG)
• Sketsa SVG Graphics Editor, $49 Payware, Java 1.42 based, demo and webstart version available, Version 3.1 doesn't do animation, not tested @ TECFA.
• Sketch, a free Linux/Unix vector drawing program can export/import SVG. (not tested)
• Sodipodi. Sodipodi is a free (GPL) vector-based drawing program. It uses W3C SVG as its native file format. It has a relatively modern display engine, giving you finely antialiased display, alpha transparencies, vector fonts and so on. Sodipodi is written in C, using the Gtk toolkit and optionally some Gnome or KDE libraries. Works under most versions of Unix and Windows. Windows users: First get the GTk library from http://www.dropline.net/gtk/ TESTED @ TECFA, works. - Il existe une Introduction en fran�ais � l'utilisation de ce logiciel.

Standards

• The official SVG specification
• Mobile SVG Profiles: SVG Tiny and SVG Basic W3C Recommendation 14 January 2003 (SVG on the road !)
• W3C Validator
• SMIL animation SVG has incorporated SMIL-type animations (a superset). This means that SMIL tutorials will also be useful to you.
• ECMAScript Language Binding for SVG (just SVG specific stuff, SVGElement has all the properties and methods of dom::Element !)
• sXBL, SVG's XML Binding Language (sXBL) s a mechanism for defining the presentation and interactive behavior of elements described in a namespace other than SVG's. (This will allow definition of high-level tagsets). [9/2004]

Manuals

• Javascript DOM and SVG database (from Pilat)
• See also, the specifications above :)

Example sites

General

• LearnSVG. Good sample extracts from the Learn SVG: The Web Graphics Standard" by Jon Frost, Stefan Goessner and Michel Hirtzler book. Revisited by Robert DiBlasi and Tobias Reif
• SVG - Learning By Coding Site with many very nice examples including advanced topics (in German), easy browsing and looking at code.
• Mozilla SVG resources has a good list of examples, in particular XHTML/SVG integration and DOM scriptin
• Pilat Several kinds of examples (e.g. SVG/Javascript, complex applications, SVG compontents).

Code fragments

• DOM tree output ECMA Script from MecXpert
• Web Solutions for Mechanical Engineering, has a nice list of code fragments.

Tutorials

Basic Tutorials

• Pilat Several tutorials + examples + complex applications.
• cours SVG de 2 jours (in french) made by E.Sierra and M-A Thibaut 2003 ("learning by teaching")
• Introduction à SVG (my own slides)
• SVG at Dev.Opera. Several tutorials (including SMIL tag animation, use Opera to view this.)
• 2 day SVG course in french made by N. Nova and Y. Grassioulet 2002 ("learning by teaching")
• An Introduction to Scalable Vector Graphics by J.D. Eisenberg, XML.com, 2001.
• Scalable Vector Graphics: The Art is in the Code Eddie Traversa, Webreference
• Developer tutorials (incl. Dynamic SVG with JavaScript), part of adobe's illustrator/svg zone
• KevLindeV Kevin Lindev's SVG site (tutorials and examples)
• SVG - Open for Business, a (short) webreference.com tutorial
• Basic Shapes, chapter three of David Eisenberg's "SVG Essentials" O'Reilly book.
• Add interactivity to your SVG by Brian John Venn, IBM developperworks article, Aug 2003. Good introductory tutorial.

SMIL Animation

(curently not supported by native Firefox SVG, but somewhat ok in Opera)

• Digging Animation, by Antoine Quint, XML.com, 2002 (SMIL animation).
• Rotate an SVG shape over it's center, By Pedro Gil, at TopXML, 2002. Shows how to use the rotate parameters.

Server-side SVG

• Combiner SVG avec PHP JDNet développeurs article de Xavier Boerderie 12/2002.
• ROASP SVG Portal : mostly perl-based server-side ...
• Generating SVG Images with PHP by L. Atkinson, Zend, 2001. (Pie Chart example)
• Creating Scalable Vector Graphics with Perl by K. Hamptom, xml.com, 2001.
• Example for Serverside SVG generation with PHP from the excellent carto.net website.
• Google SVG Search a webreference.com XML column
• Example for getURL & parseXML of the Adobe plugin. The same tutorial gives additional links, e.g. for postURL() that can be used to save data.

SVG and XSLT

• Client-side image generation with SVG and XSLT by Inigo Surguy
• Graphical Stylesheets Using XSLT to Generate SVG by Mansfield & Fuller, Schema Software. Good article (BROKEN LINK)
• Component-Based Page Layouts xml.com article by Didier Martin showing how to embedd SVG in XHTML using XSLT processing
• Part 2: Transforming XML into SVG by Doug Tidwell /@IBM DeveloperWorks (Bar and Pie Charts)
• Using XSLT to produce SVG (3) by Martin Rowlinson at TopXML (July 2004), Using XSLT to produce a simple pie chart from XML data (source code downloadable too)

Various articles (not classified)

• W3C Graphics Activity Statement. This shows the place of SVG in the overall W3C strategy.
• W3C Scalable Verctor Graphics (SVG). This is the overview page (includes News and Pointers)
• Picture Perfect xml.com, (2001)
• SVG: A Sure Bet by Paul Prescod, xml.com (July 2003)
• Flash and SVG comparison table (by A. Neumann)
• JSP Technology and SVG
• Why to Avoid Flash, by Devin Bunker
• Flash is Evil by dack (not related to svg but food for thought)
• Vector-based Web Cartography: Enabler SVGScalable Vector Graphics (french & german version also available)
• SVG - a new dimension in producing interactive netbooks by Vladimir BATAGELJ and Matjaž ZAVERŠNIK (PDF article). This is an overview paper

Other general SVG resource pages

• SVG-wiki some VERY good documentation, e.g. about viewer extensions like how to pull/push data with Adobe's SVG DOM interfaces.
• Pilat Informative Educative [francais]. SVG - PHP - MySQL - Javascript. Pleins de bons exemples (voir routines SVG), un �diteur SVG "through the web" int�ressant, extraits de livres, etc. Le meilleur site fran�ais.
• SVG - Learning By Coding Site with many very nice examples including advanced topics (in German), easy browsing and looking at code. Bester Site auf Deutsch.
• svg.pagina.nl Quick starters page by Ruud Steltenpool.
• SVGX.ORG is a News and Resources portal run by the SVG Foundation. You can browse according to several categories [New 9/2004].
• SVG Page at DMOZ
• SVG external links in Adobe's SVG Zone
• Jasc WebDraw Links
• carto:paperssvg (A.M. Winter & A. Neumann). VERY good SVG resources, examples, etc. Swiss made :)
• W3C Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) a Chris Lilley page
• SVG Page at About.com
• W3C Scalable Verctor Graphics (SVG). This is the overview page (includes News and Pointers)
• Sacr� SVG, a XML.com column
• ROASP SVG Portal (Serverside SVG Portal, mostly for Perl). (5/2003)
• SVG SMIL entries at Bitflux (the makers of the Bitflux CMS and Wysiwyg/TTW XML Editor)