Media Blog

The use of Scalable Vector Graphics, better known as SVG, has long been a great way to create dynamic graphics on the web — just feed your ever-changing values into an SVG XML file and you’ve got an always up-to-date image. It’s a great tool for displaying dynamic charts, graphics and other data visualizations on the web.

But of course, there are some issue with SVG, namely (what else?) inconsistent support across browsers. Eventually, SVG will likely enjoy native support in all the major browsers. In the mean time, there’s a possible solution on the horizon — the SVG Web JavaScript Library.

SVG Web is a JavaScript library which provides SVG support for most browsers, including Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Safari. Combining the library with the native SVG support in many browsers brings you to a solution that reaches about 95 percent of the web.

That’s pretty good by nearly anyone’s standards, and the demos on the project’s website show off some impressive tools — drag and drop photo editing, a Tetris knock off and more.

The only catch is that the SVG Web project is still in the early alpha stage and has quite a few bugs (several of the examples don’t work with Firefox’s native SVG support, though everything we tried did work with the Flash fallback option).

Still, despite the early alpha status, quite a few big names, including Wikipedia, are either currently using or working on projects that plan to use the SVG Web library. If you’ve been itching to get your SVG graphics on the web, but you’ve been hesitant due to browser compatibility issues, give SVG Web a try. And remember, if you find any bugs, be sure to add them to tracker.

To see what all SVG Web has to offer, check out the short demo video below.

[Hat tip to Simon Willison]

See Also:

• Rafael Library Paints a Pretty UI Future
• JavaScript Offers Type Designers Better Choices Than Flash
• Web Typography Tutorial - SVG

The use of Scalable Vector Graphics, better known as SVG, has long been a great way to create dynamic graphics on the web — just feed your ever-changing values into an SVG XML file and you’ve got an always up-to-date image. It’s a great tool for displaying dynamic charts, graphics and other data visualizations on the web.

But of course, there are some issue with SVG, namely (what else?) inconsistent support across browsers. Eventually, SVG will likely enjoy native support in all the major browsers. In the mean time, there’s a possible solution on the horizon — the SVG Web JavaScript Library.

SVG Web is a JavaScript library which provides SVG support for most browsers, including Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Safari. Combining the library with the native SVG support in many browsers brings you to a solution that reaches about 95 percent of the web.

That’s pretty good by nearly anyone’s standards, and the demos on the project’s website show off some impressive tools — drag and drop photo editing, a Tetris knock off and more.

The only catch is that the SVG Web project is still in the early alpha stage and has quite a few bugs (several of the examples don’t work with Firefox’s native SVG support, though everything we tried did work with the Flash fallback option).

Still, despite the early alpha status, quite a few big names, including Wikipedia, are either currently using or working on projects that plan to use the SVG Web library. If you’ve been itching to get your SVG graphics on the web, but you’ve been hesitant due to browser compatibility issues, give SVG Web a try. And remember, if you find any bugs, be sure to add them to tracker.

To see what all SVG Web has to offer, check out the short demo video below.

[Hat tip to Simon Willison]

See Also:

• Rafael Library Paints a Pretty UI Future
• JavaScript Offers Type Designers Better Choices Than Flash
• Web Typography Tutorial - SVG

With the latest versions of Safari, Firefox, Opera and Google Chrome all supporting CSS’s new @font-face rule, you might think web designers everywhere would be rushing to add fancy fonts to their websites. But of course, most aren’t. So why, if designers have been bemoaning the state of typography in the browser since the dawn of the web, hasn’t the recent growth of @font-face support turned things around?

There’s actually another, much more complicated problem with @font-face that stops it from being the panacea for your font woes: licensing.

Unfortunately, the font foundries which create, sell and license fonts have thus far been reluctant to embrace licensing terms that would allow designers to serve fonts via @font-face legally. The foundries fear pirates would be able to steal fonts much more easily if the files were published in the wild on the web.

There are some possible solutions to this, such as third-party middlemen like Typekit. However, involving yet another layer of complexity (and potential failure) to your web stack isn’t anyone’s idea of fun. So what’s a designer to do?

It turns out there are actually some fonts that you use with @font-face today. Font Squirrel, one of our favorite places to find free fonts has an entire section devoted to @font-face compatible fonts.

Two things to keep in mind with Font Squirrel’s list: First, as the site says, “Font Squirrel makes no guarantee that our interpretation of each license is correct,” which means make sure you read it yourself and possibly contact the creator to clarify. And second, some of these fonts are downright ugly.

But not all of them. Designer Francesco Mugnai recently posted a nice roundup of some of the best @font-face candidates from the Font Squirrel collection, including two of our favorites, Museo Sans and Anivers.

Of course, even with legal fonts and decent browser support, @font-face isn’t for every project. However, if you’re sick of Flash solutions like sIFR tired of being limited to only the six fonts found on nearly every PC, Font Squirrel’s list of @font-face compatible free fonts could be the solution you’ve been searching for.

Photo: healthserviceglasses/Flickr

See Also:

• Typekit Hopes to Become the YouTube of Fonts
• The Future of Web Fonts Looking Brighter
• JavaScript Library Fontifies Your Headlines

With the latest versions of Safari, Firefox, Opera and Google Chrome all supporting CSS’s new @font-face rule, you might think web designers everywhere would be rushing to add fancy fonts to their websites. But of course, most aren’t. So why, if designers have been bemoaning the state of typography in the browser since the dawn of the web, hasn’t the recent growth of @font-face support turned things around?

There’s actually another, much more complicated problem with @font-face that stops it from being the panacea for your font woes: licensing.

Unfortunately, the font foundries which create, sell and license fonts have thus far been reluctant to embrace licensing terms that would allow designers to serve fonts via @font-face legally. The foundries fear pirates would be able to steal fonts much more easily if the files were published in the wild on the web.

There are some possible solutions to this, such as third-party middlemen like Typekit. However, involving yet another layer of complexity (and potential failure) to your web stack isn’t anyone’s idea of fun. So what’s a designer to do?

It turns out there are actually some fonts that you use with @font-face today. Font Squirrel, one of our favorite places to find free fonts has an entire section devoted to @font-face compatible fonts.

Two things to keep in mind with Font Squirrel’s list: First, as the site says, “Font Squirrel makes no guarantee that our interpretation of each license is correct,” which means make sure you read it yourself and possibly contact the creator to clarify. And second, some of these fonts are downright ugly.

But not all of them. Designer Francesco Mugnai recently posted a nice roundup of some of the best @font-face candidates from the Font Squirrel collection, including two of our favorites, Museo Sans and Anivers.

Of course, even with legal fonts and decent browser support, @font-face isn’t for every project. However, if you’re sick of Flash solutions like sIFR tired of being limited to only the six fonts found on nearly every PC, Font Squirrel’s list of @font-face compatible free fonts could be the solution you’ve been searching for.

Photo: healthserviceglasses/Flickr

See Also:

• Typekit Hopes to Become the YouTube of Fonts
• The Future of Web Fonts Looking Brighter
• JavaScript Library Fontifies Your Headlines