Firefox 1.1 Plans Native SVG Support

Spy Hunter writes "The Scalable Vector Graphics format has yet to take off on the web, perhaps due to a small installed base of SVG-enabled browsers. That could soon change as the latest Firefox 1.1 nightly builds have started coming with native SVG support compiled in and enabled by default. If this feature makes into the Firefox 1.1 release (which is not certain, but likely, as the developers want it to happen) it will increase the number of web users who have an SVG renderer installed. But perhaps more interesting than that is the possibility of mixing SVG graphic elements directly into the markup of regular XHTML pages, freeing vector graphics from the small rectangle of a browser plugin and opening up a host of exciting new possibilities for web developers. This is enabled by the integration of SVG directly into the Gecko rendering engine, instead of as a browser plugin. With such a useful web developer feature available only in Firefox, could we soon start seeing websites asking their users to download Firefox to get the best browsing experience?"

Comments

More info...

[bridgey655]

Take a look at http://www.w3.org/Graphics/SVG/About.html for more information on SVG.

Re:Excellent

[spectre_240sx]

Well, you're a little bit off there. HTTP was never Hyper Text Transfer Protocol. It's HyperText Transfer Protocol. Subtle, but it makes a big difference.

hypertext

In computing, hypertext is a user interface paradigm for displaying documents which contain automated cross-references to other documents called hyperlinks. Selecting a hyperlink causes the computer to display the linked document within a very short period of time.

A document can be static (prepared and stored in advance) or dynamically generated (in response to user input). Therefore, a well-constructed hypertext system can encompass, incorporate or supersede many other user interface paradigms like menus and command lines, and can be used to access both static collections of cross-referenced documents and interactive applications. The documents and applications can be local or can come from anywhere with the assistance of a computer network like the Internet. The most famous implementation of hypertext is the World Wide Web.

The term "hypertext" is often used where the term hypermedia would be more appropriate.

Re:What is SVG?

[MP3Chuck]

They're not really in a position to be better than a JPG, in the cases where a JPG would be used to display an images with thousdands or millions of colours.

On the other hand, SVG offers an easier (or what seems should be easier) method of dynamically-generating images like charts and graphs. Combined with some javascript (think XMLHttpRequest), you can change and interact with these graphs in realtime. Along with vector graphic's "infinite" resolution you've got a lot of powerful options for graphing alone.

Re:What is SVG?

[Creepy Crawler]

---Why its better than JPEG?

Well, they're both good for different things.

JPEGS are simple raster images. A jpeg and a bitmap are one in the same (with jpeg having good compression). Simply, it comes down to this bit is this color, this bit is this color, and this bit is this color. If you magnify raster images, you end up with blurred and horribly pixellated images that have almost no resemblance of the original.

A SVG (and similar technologies) uses vector graphics. The best way to explain this is thus: Graph a line Y=X on a xy coordinate plane. You end up with a 45 degreee angle. Now, if you were to view a portion between 0 and 10^-100(X) and 0 to 10^-100(y) it's still going to be a line. It's not going to be a stairstep pixelated crap.

Probably the best usage of SVG's would be simple images made for dramatically inbcreasing size (like icons in KDE) or other size-variation.

The only way to do pretty increasing size icons now are to shim a javascript to display 6 or so jpegs that were manually sized. These do not account for resolution on your screen.

Hopefully, Ive made clear what these things are.

Inkscape

[Kristoffer Lunden]

http://www.inkscape.org/

Re:What graphic editors support SVG?

[cei]

Adobe Illustrator

Re:"download Firefox to get the best browsing..."

[geekboy642]

They'll only hit the back button if they can tell the page is obviously borked. If the webmister has done his/her/its work properly, the page will degrade to a level that IE can handle, without becoming craptastic.
Ex: Implement SVG as a bandwidth savings measure, then keep static PNG/GIF images around for when IE shows up. That's why the webserver is told which browser is visiting, IIRC.

Re:Excellent

[NoMoreNicksLeft]

Picking on the wrong people. Unlike Flash, SVG isn't some binary kludge. Which means that by using CSS properly, the browser will actually be able to render non-SVG alternatives with little trouble (not even lame javascript browser/plugin detectors).

Re:What graphic editors support SVG?

[Metaphorically]

SodiPodi is a native SVG editor. ImageMagick and the Gimp also have some SVG support.

Re:"only in Firefox" - NOT

[Zontar The Mindless]

SVG-enabled builds of Mozilla have been available for about 4 years.

The reason for the excitement (and SVG soon to be switched on by default in FireFox) is a new SVG backend which is supposedly much better, although the old one always worked just fine for me.

Re:Mixing SVG into XHTML: Standard?

[High Hat]

since SVG is XML-based and XHTML provides a way to include any other XML-conformant language in a special element, yes, this is standard and any XHTML compliant browser that doesn't do SVG will simply ignore it...

Re:Please: SVG Maps

[Jeffrey Baker]

You can already get very complete US map data for free from the government. The map data providers' grip on the market is fairly tenuous, and rests on the perception that, like Edgar Online, they provide added value beyond what the government gives you. But, like Edgar Online, the government's data offering will eventually be so complete as to render the "value added" services moot.

The only thing left to wonder is will it take 2 or 20 years?

Re:Opera

[interiot]

The SVG Tiny spec is pretty short and concise, especially the sections about scripting and animation:

• 16. Scripting

  SVGT [SVG-Tiny] does not support scripting. SVGB [SVG-Basic] allows optional support of scripting, and includes all of the language features from SVG 1.1 to support scripting.

• 17. Animation

  Both SVGB and SVGT support the full set of SVG 1.1's declarative animation features:

  The language features to support animation through scripting and DOM are available in SVGB. SVGT only supports declarative animation.

  SVGB and SVGT allow implicit targeting of parent elements, and targeting elements using the 'xlink:href' attribute.

  SVGB and SVGT support linear, spline, paced and discrete animations.

Well... SVG Tiny vs SVG Basic

[Animaether]

SVG tiny = mobile phones
SVG basic = PDAs
SVG = personal computers

And if you'd checked this page :
http://www.w3.org/TR/SVGMobile/#sec-eleind, which is Google hit #1 for 'svg tiny', you would see the differences between SVG tiny and SVG basic in terms of supported elements, styles (further down), etc.
In addition, anywhere where SVG basic at least reads "n/a", that's a feature that should be in SVG full.

Opera has it already

[perler]

as almost always, opera had it before ;P

depends...

[bundaegi]

However, what does happen is that you may not have enough "lines" to display well at a larger resolution. What looked good with 200 lines at a small resolution may look like total crap at a high resolution.

Depends how you define your path data (how you describe the curves that link your points). SVG defines more than straight line segments. Say, instead of your 200 lines, you may only need two curved segments which you can zoom in as much as you want.

From Appendix A: SVG Requirements

[...] Paths can be made up of any combination of the following:

• Straight line segments
• Cubic bezier curved segments
• Quadratic bezier curved segments
• Elliptical and circular arcs
• No other curve types (Other curve types such as splines or nurbs are either technically very difficult, industry-specific and/or have not established themselves as industry standards as much as beziers.)

You may want to check tools like autotrace and their output if you're not entirely convinced ;-)

Re:And... the big news

[Anonymous Coward]

CTRL+plus, CTRL+minus (increase font size, decrease font size) corrects the glitch without reloading and, unlike reloading, every time.