This tutorial will help get you started using SVG.
Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) are an XML-based markup language for describing two-dimensional based vector graphics. As such, it's a text-based, open Web standard for describing images that can be rendered cleanly at any size and are designed specifically to work well with other web standards including CSS, DOM, JavaScript, and SMIL. SVG is, essentially, to graphics what HTML is to text.
SVG images and their related behaviors are defined in XML text files, which means they can be searched, indexed, scripted, and compressed. Additionally, this means they can be created and edited with any text editor or with drawing software.
Compared to classic bitmapped image formats such as JPEG or PNG, SVG-format vector images can be rendered at any size without loss of quality and can be easily localized by updating the text within them, without the need of a graphical editor to do so. With proper libraries, SVG files can even be localized on-the-fly.
SVG has been developed by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) since 1999.
Documentation
- SVG element reference
- Details about each SVG element.
- SVG attribute reference
- Details about each SVG attribute.
- SVG DOM interface reference
- Details about the SVG DOM API, for interaction with JavaScript.
- Applying SVG effects to HTML content
- SVG works together with HTML, CSS and JavaScript. Use SVG to enhance a regular HTML page or web application.
Community
- View Mozilla forums...
Tools
- SVG Test Suite
- Markup Validator
- More Tools...
- Other resources: XML, CSS, DOM, Canvas
Examples
- Google Maps (route overlay) & Docs (spreadsheet charting)
- SVG bubble menus
- SVG authoring guidelines
- An overview of the Mozilla SVG Project
- Frequently asked questions regarding SVG and Mozilla
- SVG as an image
- SVG animation with SMIL
- SVG art gallery
Animation and interactions
Like HTML, SVG has a document model (DOM) and events, and is accessible from JavaScript. This allows developers to create rich animations and interactive images.
- Some real eye-candy SVG at svg-wow.org
- Firefox extension (Grafox) to add a subset of SMIL animation support
- Interactive photos manipulation
- HTML transformations using SVG's
foreignObject
Mapping, charting, games & 3D experiments
While a little SVG can go a long way to enhanced web content, here are some examples of heavy SVG usage.
- Connect 4
- jVectorMap (interactive maps for data visualization)
- JointJS (JavaScript diagramming library)
- D3 ( JavaScript library for visualizing data with HTML, SVG, and CSS )
