KSVG and KDE3.2: A Preview

This preview is intended for those who don't know much about KSVG and/or SVG. KSVG is an implementation of the W3C SVG specification. This is an open specification to realize vector graphics in an XML environment. SVG is already quite established on the Web. There are many sites which make use of this relatively new technology. For those who wonder why we should need a new image format we can say that SVG is a completely different format than PNG, JPEG etc. It is a vector format. This means that you have to describe an image rather than saving it pixel-wise. To give you an idea: If you want to have a red rectangle you would have to do something like that in your SVG:
<rect x="10" y="10" width="100" height="100" style="fill: red"/>
Quite intuitive, isn't it? A well known vector format is Flash and many Flash applications could be replaced by SVG. But SVG is not intended to be a Flash killer. Both have their pros and cons. SVG will just make the Web a little bit more colourful. And, compared to Flash it is an open format and we on UN*X, we love open, don't we?

In a windows environment almost everybody will have a SVG viewer soon, as Adobe, one of the greatest promoters of SVG, bundles their SVG Viewer with Adobe Acrobat Reader. Due to the fact that everybody wants to have a PDF Reader, SVG will be viewable by most people in the next years ;). People on UN*X systems had a problem so far. The viewers weren't far advanced and so most of the SVG's in the wild were unaccessible for them.

Some of you will already know that KDE 3.1 included SVG icons with the appropriate engine to display them and will now wonder why svg in KDE should be new. This is due to the fact that the icon engine is just a small, ripped off part of KSVG. KSVG itself is much more than icons. It is a KPart and thus could be used in every KDE application. So far we know of one application which embeds KSVG: k2d.

The real use of KSVG is to provide something similar to the Adobe SVG Viewer on KDE: A plugin for the web browser. KSVG can do much already. It renders most of the static testcases of the W3C. Just filters, masking and CSS are a real problem so far. Animations, one of the greatest features of SVG don't work either. But that is likely to change sooner or later though we doubt animations will be part of KSVG in KDE 3.2. Scripting is almost as good as the scripting in Adobe's Viewer, so most of the wild life SVG's will be viewable by KSVG. Here is a small overview what KSVG can do so far:

307kb	Map of denmark. Relatively big map. (853kb)
342kb	Previews of svgs in konqueror.
152kb	International fonts. Vertical text etc.
130kb	The options of KSVG: Choose a rendering Backend. Enable/Disable "Progressive Rendering" and "Font Kerning".
150kb	Text decoration abilities.
185kb	Text positioning.
150kb	Simulating a snowfall using ECMAScript/DOM.
212kb	Gradients.
144kb	Viewing some of the Crystal Icons.
145kb	Text alignment.
178kb	KSVG rendering various international fonts.
266kb	Our speed testcase. 1.8 MB. The fastest rendering time was around 6 seconds on a 1,4 GHz Athlon. WITH progressive rendering.

As you can see KSVG is already quite usable and we think that most wildlife SVG's should be viewable with the release of KDE 3.2. But the SVG specification is really HUGE and there are just 3 developers. We still don't render the whole SVG 1.0 testsuite and the release of SVG 1.2 is pending and will add even more features. If you are interested to help out please have a look at the Contact page. There are plenty of jobs pending for you ;). To ensure a high-quality release KSVG also needs testers. If you want to help to make it rock-stable, check it out from CVS (package kdegraphics).

The followers of the vector
   Rob, Niko, Adrian and Andreas

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