What's New
| 1999-05-10 | A Java SVG renderer, with source, is first announced on the www-svg mailing list by Carmen Delessio of BlackDirt Software. A Windows Metafile to SVG converter, again in Java with source, is also announced. |
| 1999-04-28 | A technology preview implementation of an SVG renderer, by Adobe, is demonstrated to the public at the XML Europe 99 conference in Granada, Spain. (no, it isn't publically available yet) |
| 1999-04-12 | A new SVG Working Draft was released. Here are the changes from the previous public draft. |
| 1999-03-04 | Webmonkey has a Sneak Peek at SVG written by Steve Mulder |
| 1999-02-15 | SVG news coverage:
An SVG page is added to the Yahoo! Graphics Formats entry |
| 1999-02-12 | SVG news coverage:
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| 1999-02-11 |
First public draft of SVG was released |
What is it
SVG is a language for describing two-dimensional graphics in XML. SVG allows for three types of graphic objects: vector graphic shapes (e.g., paths consisting of straight lines and curves), images and text. Graphical objects can be grouped, styled, transformed and composited into previously rendered objects. Text can be in any XML namespace suitable to the appplication, which enhances searchability and accessibility of the SVG graphics. The feature set includes nested transformations, clipping paths, alpha masks, filter effects, template objects and extensibility.
SVG drawings can be dynamic and interactive. The Document Object Model (DOM) for SVG, which includes the full XML DOM, allows for straightforward and efficient vector graphics animation via scripting. A rich set of event handlers such as onmouseover and onclick can be assigned to any SVG graphical object. Because of its compatibility and leveraging of other Web standards, features like scripting can be done on SVG elements and other XML elements from different namespaces simultaneously within the same Web page.
Status
The second public draft of the SVG specification was released on 12th April 1999.
The first draft was released on 11st February, 1999 (press release and Testimonials from SVG Working Group members. ).
This means it is a snapshot of work in progress; it can and will change, but has been released for public comment and feedback (which should be directed to www-svg@w3.org.
MIME type
The MIME type for SVG, likely to be image/svg, has not yet been registered with IANA.
More information
There is now a DTD for SVG. To make a valid SVG graphic, start with this skeleton:
<?xml version="1.0" standalone="no"?> <!DOCTYPE svg PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD SVG April 1999//EN" "http://www.w3.org/Graphics/SVG/svg-19990412.dtd"> <svg width="4in" height="3in"> <desc><!-- put a description here --> </desc> <g><!-- your graphic here --> </g> </svg>
To make a well-formed SVG graphic, or a document which includes multiple namespaces including SVG, start with this skeleton:
<?xml version="1.0" standalone="yes"?> <svg width="4in" height="3in" xmlns = 'http://www.w3.org/Graphics/SVG/svg-19990412.dtd'> <desc><!-- put a description here --> </desc> <g><!-- your graphic here --> </g> </svg>
Remember to add an encoding declaration if your file is not in UTF-8 or UTF-16.
Further information will be added here, as the specification stabilises and experimental implementations become available.
