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

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?

[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: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.