Re: SVG Viewer

HP wrote:
> Adobe has announced that it is discontinuing the viewer and will by
> 1.Jan.2008 stop supporting it and by 01.Jan.2009 remove the option to
> download it (license does not allow for others to put it up for
> downloading).
> 
> I do not want to be dependent on FireFox and/or Opera (both with SVG
> support) but will have to continue using MS IE (and MS does not promise any
> features of future IE versions before beta program starts – although SVG
> will probably be included in 7.2 – based on rumors).
> 
> What are my options – any help will be very much appreciated.

I am basically in the same position, and I think more of us who have
built or are maintaining SVG based server/client apps have this
problem. There does not seem to be a good SVG viewing option that
works on many platforms and with many browsers (firefox, safari,
epiphany, IE, mac, unix, ms windows, etc..).

I am currently maintaining such an application that was built to use
SVG as its primary output method. We are currently thinking about
how to go forward. One option is to switch to Apache's Batik viewer,
write plugins for the various browsers that use batik for rendering.
However, this is not an attractive prospect, as it will mean that we
will have to maintain a lot of plugins.

Another option will be to switch to another java-based set of
classes that can be used to visualise data, and ditching SVG
all-together.

Both approaches of course have the problem of depending on java. It
is heavy on old machines, and not everyone can install java in
locked-down IT environments (of course, the same would go for the
adobe svg plugin).

Anyway, I am curious what others think of this problem? Using native
svg rendering capacities of firefox/opera is indeed a non-option as
long as there is no solution for IE.

Gr,

Koen

Received on Monday, 6 November 2006 16:44:34 UTC