SVG

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fractalvibes
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SVG

Post by fractalvibes »

Has anyone looked into SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics)? I just did my first test - slightly more than 'hello world' demo with this and find it very interesting. You can get Flash-like interactivity using basically just XML and some javascript. Haven't got into it enough yet to know best practices, shortcuts, etc. Thinking that these things generated on the fly via PHP/MySql or any other server language and databases could really be powerfull.

Feedback? I really think this SVG thing has potential and would like to hear from anyone else who has tested these waters...

fv
fractalvibes
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Post by fractalvibes »

So, no comments about SVG to be had, I gather. Thought there might be some since this is an open standard and should be applicable to most any web dev environment...

fv
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markl999
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Post by markl999 »

SVG is very interesting. I played with it a while back but for general support to be so bad i just gave up. Havn't looked to see if the support is any better now, but i remember having to download various bits and peices depending on how/where/waht you wanted to view the SVG's on.
fractalvibes
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Post by fractalvibes »

It does seem to be primarily dependant upon the Adobe SVG viewer at the moment. I understand that there is an open source Batik project that deals with it in some way. Being an open standard, as an application of XML - i.e. text; it seems like a near-perfect idea.

fv
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anjanesh
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Post by anjanesh »

I was just checking out SVG and I was thinking of having animated graphics done with SVG which is script based. I find it like a major extension to javascript and thought this is really cool. But why aren't people not having SVG plugin ? Its no use writing svg code if people aren't going to have the plugin. If browsers come with it then I think it'll e more popular. Also - it seems to take up memory. I can notice the deifference when switching from browsers.
McGruff
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Post by McGruff »

I help with a site that uses SVG to produce maps. However that's all handled by a (very expensive) GIS program - all I've done was provide a way to automatically generate html pages from data in a desktop database. The site has to have a fork for non-SVG aware browsers as mentioned above - but soon SVG will be widely supported.

It is something I want to look into in more detail. Maybe there's some scope to provide cheaper alternatives using php...
fractalvibes
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Post by fractalvibes »

Yes, I think SVG is being used by many GIS solutions, MapInfo and the like. As usual, I think Microsoft is heavy into a derivation on the SVG idea called XAML (which Longhorn may base it's UI on).

I like the fact that it is open source and based on XML. I just went a small way with SVG, still many things to sort out. Hope to see more discussion on this topic.

fv
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m3mn0n
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Post by m3mn0n »

I've also checked out SVG. I made some simple images based on tutorials in this PHP/XML book I have. I like it, it's so simple.

I believe it has great potential, but for right now I'm using [php_man]Ming[/php_man] because users won't need to download anything special since the Flash plugin is one 95+ percent of users; whereas the Adobe SVG Viewer is not even on one tenth of that figure.

However I do plan to use SVG on less widely used apps, like small presentations & data charts for example. So I'm still practicing it when I can, and continuing to read up on the official SVG site. :)
fractalvibes
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Post by fractalvibes »

I wonder how much of a threat XAML will be to SVG. Seems like once standards are agreed to, M$ takes them off on a tangent to something proprietory...

fv
slobeck
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Post by slobeck »

In a perfect world we'd be able to use SVG to go around the need for an expensive developer tool like Flash. When SVG first appeared about the time that Flash included a scripting language, I was interested and so did a few experiments. Here is what I found. SVG is generally a bigger pain-in-the-rear than it was worth. As noted before it's largely dependant on the svg viewer which remains nearly undeveloped siince its inception. javascript and xml are not equipped to handle graphic elements as fully realized programmatic objects the way actionscript does. Not enough can be said about plug-in ubiquity. People really don't like downloading plugins. It is of great benefit that each time some company updates their browser, that it includes the latest public release of the Flash player.

If all you need os to greate some basic (rotation, fades, movement) animation, SVG might be a way to avoid buying Flash. If you're interested in using vector graphics as part of a presentation layer in a web app, go with Flash.

A footnote: A lot of great things are being done using Actionscript and Flash remoting with PHP. AMFPHP is the best of it so far, giving developers all the power of flash remoting with cold fusion. It's an exciting time tro be a Flash developer, and it isn't Macromedia leading the way. It's PHP develpoers.
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