APPENDIX C:  VIEWERS, TOOLS, AND AUTHORING ENVIRONMENTS

Extract

Adobe SVG Viewer

 Adobe has been a leader in regard to SVG in many areas.  As an SVG working group member Adobe put a lot of work into the development of the SVG specification.  Also Adobe has promised full support of SVG in all of their major graphics applications and has already delivered on the promise in Adobe Illustrator 10, Adobe GoLive 5.0 and Adobe Live Motion (hopefully).  Most importantly, Adobe Systems led the industry in its support of SVG by releasing the most advanced SVG viewer called the Adobe SVG Viewer www.adobe.com/svg/. 

The Adobe SVG Viewer is available as a downloadable plug–in that allows SVG to be viewed on Windows, Linux and Mac operating systems in all major browsers including Internet Explorer (versions 4.x, 5.x, 6.x), Netscape (versions 4.x, 6.x), and Opera in Internet Explorer and Netscape.  In Internet Explorer 5.0 or higher SVG can even be rendered inline with other XML documents by means of an SVG binary behavior that is distributed with the Adobe SVG Viewer.  If you have not downloaded Adobe’s plug-in yet then now is a great time to check it out.

This viewer is the most widely deployed SVG viewer and it supports nearly all of the SVG Specification including support for the SVG DOM, animation and scripting.  The SVG Viewer plug-in also works as a plug-in for Real Player and allows for SVG to be viewed with video and sound media.

Features of the Adobe SVG Viewer

Click the right mouse button (CTRL-Key + mouse click on the Mac) over your SVG image to gets a context menu.  The context menu gives you several options such as step-by-step zooming, finding (searching for text in the SVG image), viewing the SVG source, and saving the SVG. 

Figure C-1.  The Adobe SVG Viewer context menu

 There are also some built in hot-keys that allow you to easily perform the following:

 Magnification

 Zoom In:  Using the CTRL-Key (or Apple-Key) you can drag your mouse to make a rectangle that specifies the cross-section of the area you will zoom to. 

Zoom Out:  This work just like “Zoom In” except you press the CTRL-Key and the SHIFT-Key at the same time. 

Panning

Panning:  Pressing the ALT-Key and move the mouse cursor while a "hand-icon" appears.

 Copy SVG

The purpose of the SVG Viewers “Copy SVG” options is for users to be able to cut-and-paste graphics and/or source code into other applications.  Using “Copy SVG” developers are able to make a copy of the source code, which can be pasted into any text editor.  Also, after selecting “Copy SVG” and switching to a desktop application such as MS Office users are able to choose either to use the Edit à Paste option to produce a snapshot of the SVGs DOM-tree code (this contains the current structure of the dynamic SVG image) or users can use the Edit à Paste Special option to translate the SVG into a Bitmap image.  These options are likely to improve and increase as support for SVG improves in other applications.

View Source

The SVG Viewers “View Source” menu options allows both compressed and uncompressed SVG source code to instantly be viewed as text in a new browser window.  This is a very handy option for designers and developers.

Save SVG as…

This option allows for quickly saving of SVG content to your local computer by popping up a “save SVG as” form that gives you the option to input the name and location of the file.  In version 3 of the Adobe SVG Viewer the option of Saving as GZip compressed SVG (.svgz) was added to the ‘save as’ dialog box.

Figure C-2.  SVG Viewer save options

 Take a few minutes and test out some of the SVG Viewer menu options.  There is a good chance that it will be time well spent, as these options are powerful and often lead to increased efficiency. 

Although the Adobe SVG Viewer should meet most people needs for viewing SVG there are several other SVG viewers available.