News items syndicated from svg.org.
The third beta of the SVG Tiny 1.2 test suite has been released by the SVG WG. This includes 495 approved tests, most with many sub-tests. This is a subset of the 578 tests currently under development. Please see the
SVG Working Group wiki for details of previous releases and for the current state of work.
An SVG Tiny 1.2 test fest will be held Sept 29 - Oct 2, 2008 in Ottawa, Canada.
Tim Berners-Lee, creator of the Web and Director of W3C, said in an interview, published on MSNBC that Microsoft Internet Explorer is behind all the other browsers since it has no SVG support (except via an unsupported plugin).
"If you look around at browsers, you'll find that most of them support scalable vector graphics," Berners-Lee said. "I'll let you figure out which one has been slow in supporting SVG."
The article goes on to explain for a general audience what SVG is, why it is important, and which other browsers support it (all of them, basically).
Those interested in specific details of SVG support - and how it has improved over time - should look at Jeff Schiller's SVG support table which includes versions of Firefox, Opera, Safari, Google Chrome, Konqueror and Batik - plus IE7 and IE8beta. Plugins (ASV, Renesis) are also graded.
Earlier this year I wrote a short article for XML.com called XSLT and Image Rendering introducing the idea of rendering SVG graphics using XSLT 2.0 and outputting the result as a TIFF image. The article also points to the project blog that has some more details about what was achieved. I just thought you might find it an interesting distraction from the usual.
InputDraw is a reference widget to enable draw input on a Html Form or any site with ease and simplicity. This Flash component works with SVG but lacks on the scope enable as only Path elements are present.
We are now working on a new version that will have a big set of SVG elements supported (maybe even bigger than what Firefox supports).
We are showing a new version on the Blog where you can see several drawings or even write your own SVG draw. Zoom is also allowed so your can see the amazing of vector graphics.
Read on for the full story...
Opera Software just released the final public version of it's flagship Web browser, Opera 9.5.
Some highlights:
- Improved standards support:
Including CSS3, SVG 1.1 Full and 1.2 Tiny, XSLT 1.0, HTML5 and more.
- Speed:
Opera continues to lead in performance. Opera 9.5 makes dramatic speed improvements to the e-mail client, RSS feeds and the browser itself, so you can spend more time getting things done online.
- Opera Link: Your bookmarks, Speed Dial and even notes taken in the Opera browser can follow you anywhere. Opera Link keeps you synchronized between any Opera 9.5 desktop browser and Opera Mini, Opera's free browser for your mobile phone. In Opera 9.5 write a note - copy directions, create shopping lists or jot down anything you need to remember - and access it on any Opera 9.5 browser by simply logging in.
- Find anything: Enhanced address bar searches your entire browsing history, including the contents of each page.
- Security enhancements: malware protection, improved fraud protection, and support for Extended Validation SSL Certificates.
- Looking sharp: Opera makes a move to modernize its look and feel to a sharp new skin with clean lines and clear icons. The ‘New Tab’ button and other elements have been modified to make the switch to a better Web experience more intuitive. You may also select any of our platform-specific skins to help Opera’s appearance adapt to your operating system of choice.
Read the full changelog.
Opera 9.5 is available for Linux, Mac and PC computers and ships in more than 30 languages with additional languages soon available. Opera is free from www.opera.com.
uismedia is pleased to announce MapViewSVG 7, an extension for ESRI ArcGIS Desktop. MapViewSVG offers the possibility to publish ArcMap projects fast, easy and cost-efficient on Internet/Intranet, CD or DVD. MapViewSVG supports vector based object data and image data. Attribute data are stored as XML files or in a database and are dynamically linked to the geometric data. WMS- or ArcIMS server data can be included as well. Several query functionalities allow powerful possibilities in searching attribute data and their geometries.
Additional information about MapViewSVG and the possibility to download an evaluation version are available under http://www.mapviewsvg.com
Read on for the full story...
KIYUT just released Sketsa SVG Editor 5.2, a cross platform vector drawing application based on SVG. It features various tools for optimizing content creation, giving designers unsurpassed support for creativity. These tools include property palette, source editor, resources editor, SVG specific shape tools, transformation tools, and additional illustration tools. Sketsa uses SVG as a native file format.
What's new:
- Improved Menu Mnemonics and Shortcut
- Updated to use Apache Batik (rev 659033)
- Updated to use Netbeans 6.1
- Fix DOM Editor NPE
- Fix Rotate Tool (constraint angle > 180 degree)
- Fix CanvasSelection when SVG node is removed
- Fix Save Menu disabled
- Other bug fixes and enhancements
Read on for the full story...
Opera Software released a public alpha version of a new developer tool named Dragonfly.
The Dragonfly alpha release will upgrade automatically and includes a JavaScript Debugger, DOM and CSS Inspectors, Error Console and Command Line. To try it out, visit the Dragonfly product page for a free download.
To learn how more about how to use Opera Dragonfly head on over to dev.opera.com for an introduction.
Note especially that Opera is looking for feedback and that your input will help make the developer tools even better.
Mihai Sucan has written an excellent article on How to make a Voice controlled SVG game over on dev.opera.com.
From the article:
The game I have built displays several objects on screen, and the object of the game is to make all the objects have the same shape and color - you can do this by issuing voice commands ot the page, such as "change the blue squares to red triangles" or "switch the yellow shapes to circles". Once a player does so they win and the game ends. The game allows you to change various parameters such as the number of objects and players.
Among the exciting features is a much higher stability as well as the Internet Explorer® Plugin and the Windows® Explorer® Plugin have been improved and do integrate perfectly. The RENESIS Core Engine has received a lot of attention and features an almost complete CSS 2.1 Engine, external stylesheets, almost complete DOM 3 Core and DOM 3 Events Support as well as increased compability with the SVG 1.1 Standard including the new support for Masks and Clipping, Text on Pathes, Embedded SVG Images, Embedded SVG Fonts, Support for switch Statements and much more.
Behind the scenes, event not noticeable on first sight, a lot of perfomance and memory tuning has been done. Through a new caching and update region algorithm, repainting happens a lot faster than ever before and partly beats out the Adobe® SVG Viewer application. There are still a lot of things to do to improve overall perfomance, especially on text and referenced elements, but overall, the perfomance has highly increased and does no longer depend on the actual size of the svg document or on how many objects are placed around.
"The demand for customized handsets and improved user experience continues to increase," said Nico Finke, head of product management at Esmertec. "This partnership allows us to deliver high-quality 2D-graphics technology to our customers. We look forward to providing Quickoffice's products and continue our commitment to being the best in the industry."
http://www.quickoffice.com/news/quickoffice-press-releases/2008-press-releases/press-release-april-22-2008/
Dallas, Texas, April 1, 2008: "Quickoffice, Inc., the leading global provider of innovative software and solutions for the mobile business professional, today announced its Scalable Vector Graphics Tiny (SVGT) Platform has been selected by ARM to be optimized for the ARM Mali Graphics Architecture. The partnership will benefit developers of ARM technology-based system-on-chip (SoC) designs, original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and mobile platform vendors, such as Symbian and Windows Mobile.
http://www.quickoffice.com/news/quickoffice-press-releases/2008-press-releases/press-release-april-1-2008/
GEMï (ex GUI) is a multiple windows system with scroll bars, resize, collapse and restore, move, zoom, menus (file open and close), dialogs, windows tabs, thumbnails, colorpicker, preferences, selective print, info, online help. It's main vocation is to be used on the web or private network. In remote use it can open project's files and save the user preferences.
GEMï is under LGPL license.
http://www.dotuscomus.com/svg/lib/library.html#gemi
Read on for the full story...
"Utilizing the Open Mobile Alliance Rich Media Environment (OMA-RME) application framework layer and a connected device such as a mobile handset or PC, MobiTV will provide an array of interactive applications to the field trial including voting, polling, mCommerce, interactive advertising, real-time audience measurement and key reporting capabilities that drive unique measurement. These enhancements will become indispensable in defining the next generation of mobile television applications and business models. MobiTV is working with world class partners including BitFlash and VisualOn, to create a ubiquitous reference standard and client platform ready for mass deployment across a wide variety of devices."
http://www.mobitv.com/about/press/releases/page=press/release_041408a
The English and French editions of the LearnSVG.com ebook is now available for free and can be downloaded here: Learn SVG.
The Inkscape community today is announcing the release of the newest
version of its open source vector graphics editor. Inkscape 0.46 is a
major update that introduces native PDF support. The implementation of
PDF support in Inkscape provides an easy, open source solution to
editing PDF documents.
Tons of new features and performance improvements are included in this
release. Dialogs now have the ability to be docked to the editing
window. Gradients can be edited completely on-canvas. The new Paint
Bucket Tool fills bounded areas with color. A new 3D Box tool helps
create perspective-correct drawings. A new Tweak tool provides an
intuitive method for editing paths and painting objects. The new Live
Path Effects feature can create "brushes" and various organic effects
on paths. Improvements to color management include support for color
spaces other than sRGB. Most SVG filters are now implemented, and a
new powerful UI is provided for editing filter stacks..
Download Inkscape 0.46 for Linux, Windows or Mac OS X
Read on for the full story...
New to all this, but you folks may be interested.
I've made a server that converts Blazonry (the jargon for describing coats of arms) into SVG. The SVG I produce, near as I can tell, is mostly valid, though no web browser seems to be able to handle it well, and of libraries only rsvglib works right. So by default the server converts to PNG, but there's an option to see the SVG instead.
Take a look at http://web.meson.org/blazonserver/ and let me know what you think!
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