Is it sensible to dynamically generate SVG images on websites yet?

Question

I'm just learning about SVG, and it seems great but I'm not sure about browser support - have people successfully got around this, or is it still too early?

Answer 1

I'd say your best bet is to create the image in whatever format you're most comfortable with, then convert it to SVG with something like ImageMagick. You could write PostScript by hand or with a library, or directly create the image from simple text/shape primitives using the ImageMagick API. There's pretty good documentation, and you can call ImageMagick as a COM object (assuming your language has good COM support).

Answer 2

You can use John Resig's processing.js library to get cross-browser compatibility.

There is also Walter Zorn's (lot of DIVs) technique, that doesn't use SVG.

Answer 3

Adobe also makes an SVG viewer plugin that you can link to on your site for people to get full functionality of your site. Unfortunately, they are discontinuing support for the plugin, but by that time, it is expected that more browser support will be forthcoming (hopefully). Several years ago I worked for a company that wrote an entire web app using SVG, and we had great success with this plugin.

Answer 4

Raphael is a cross-browser vector graphics library which might be worth a look.

Answer 5

I thought it was worth updating this dialog because things are becoming more "do able" in SVG cross-browser. As someone who has implemented some (fairly significant) systems for organisation I have been "dabbling" into the world of "cross-browser" SVG. I see the words "still too early" on a dialog started 11 months ago and I'm adding to it.

Please go to my site that shows some of the capabilities of Raphael. You can easily link to the main Raphael site there after your pitstop.

My website was implemented with Raphael 0.8.6 but the creater of "Rap" just brought version 1.0 from beta and that (additionally) fully supports SVG "paths"

If you want to visit the world of CROSS-BROWSER interactive/SVG in it's current status please visit these constamtly updated websites via:

http://www.irunmywebsite.com/raphael/raphaelsource.html

Answer 6

There is a new way to bypass internet explorer's lack of svg-capabilities:

The google project svgweb: Scalable Vector Graphics for Web Browsers using Flash. It's a JavaScript library which provides SVG support on many browsers, including Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Safari.