EVE Web Edition

EVE Web Edition is an enhanced version of EVE, for those who create web pages. If you've used the free standard EVE, you will know the simple uncluttered user interface hides a powerful product. Well, EVE has now zoomed to an even higher echelon of power and convenience.

There is only ONE thing that the Web Edition does more than the standard EVE: export to SVG (there is also import SVG, but it is to be treated as pre-alpha at this stage).

SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) is the new international open standard for vector graphics on the Web. Vector graphics has major advantages compared with GIF and JPG bitmap images, such as small file size and scalability without any loss of quality.
However, it goes a lot further than that -- a vector image stores each shape or element as a mathematical formula, so each element can be individually edited. This means that on a web page, an individual element in a SVG graphic can animate or be a hot-spot for sound or hyperlink to another web page. In fact, SVG competes with Macromedia Flash, a proprietary standard.

An SVG file is a text file, just like HTML -- and you web page developers know the advantage of being able to go down to the HTML code level and tweak the code if your WYSIWYG HTML editor doesn't do quite the right thing. Note also that SVG files can be compressed and will have extension .svgz, and can still be opened directly by an SVG viewer. I've seen examples of graphics in GIF being say 60K and only 1K in SVG.

• Okay, the important question -- can SVG be viewed in any Web browser, on any operating system?
  Answer -- yes. The free Adobe SVG Viewer is the main choice for Internet Explorer and Netscape on Windows, Macintosh, Linux and Solaris platforms. There will soon be native (inbuilt) support for SVG in Netscape/Mozilla/K-Meleon and Konquer browsers, thus not requiring a third-party plugin. Corel has a new viewer, not yet as fully-featured as the Adobe viewer.

• The second most important question -- is SVG a real standard, that will be adopted everywhere?
  Answer -- yes. Go to the proposers of the standard, the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), at http://www.w3.org/ (not now, look at my page first!)

• The third most important question -- how can I create SVG graphic images?
  Answer -- There are various editors out there. Two of the main heavyweight commercial products are Adobe Illustrator 9 and Corel Draw 10. There are some shareware products, such as Mayura Draw. EVE comes in as the tiniest, simplest and cheapest contender. Note also that MS Office version 11 will have SVG import and export for Visio.

• This fourth question is also an important issue -- can I insert SVG graphics into ordinary applications?
  We're talking about off the web here. Answer -- yes, you can, if the application supports insertion of "objects". With MS Word, you go to the menu "Insert/Object.../Create from file..." to insert an SVG graphic into a document. Adobe SVG Viewer must be installed. Also, an increasing number of applications will import SVG.

• For the SVG newbies -- how can I most easily learn about SVG code?
  EVE has a feature that makes learning about the code an absolute dream. In the 100% GUI environment of EVE, you can view SVG code in realtime and even add your own SVG code directly, simultaneously while working on the diagram. You can find this described in the online EVE WE User Manual, section Realtime SVG code generation and customisation.
  The ability to customise the SVG code is also a great boon for skilled SVG coders.

Creating SVG graphics with EVE is so simple. What you see on an EVE diagram can become an SVG graphic on a Web page. It's that simple, but you really do need to get the visual impact of actually seeing an EVE-created SVG graphic. There is one immediately below, but you won't see it until you download the Adobe SVG Viewer. Go ahead and do it, as it's not just my page that has SVG graphics on it ...

Note that you may already have it, as Adobe now bundle the SVG Viewer with their Acrobat PDF Viewer -- which means that the SVG viewer is proliferating -- I read somewhere it's on 160 million PCs and going rapidly up.

After installation, come back to this page and press the browser's "refresh" button. Then, boggle your eyes at this...

Just about everything that you can do in EVE exports to SVG. The above SVG graphic shows various shapes, text, bitmaps, animation, and hyperlink. Text has automatic wordwrap, can be rotated. Any element can animate. The WWW and text-file link activators all work in SVG. For example, the face with the goggling eyes is a hyperlink to another web page -- hyperlinks don't have to be bitmaps incidentally, as the link activator can attach to any element.

The Web Edition of EVE is so simple to use, yet so incredibly powerful and useful. Want her? To get access to EVE WE, I would like a small token of support. It'll cost you just $10. Yes, that's all -- I just want a gesture of support from my users, to help with Internet and phone costs, OS upgrades etc.

Examples, etc

For your further amusement, here are some interesting examples. If you're still not convinced about the EVE/SVG combo, I suggest look through these examples -- they are quite dramatic evidence of the advantages of both EVE and SVG.

• Animation and embedded bitmap:
  Here we have my example from above, converted to animate4.gif (6,010 bytes). GZIPping my SVG file gives animate4.svgz plus the separate small face bitmap animate41.gif (1,020 + 1,852 bytes) -- and of course the 6,010-byte animate4.gif GIF file doesn't have the animation nor hyperlink. The GIF file is 256 color, LZW compression.
  It is interesting to compare these file sizes with the original .EVE file, svgdemo4.eve (3,371 bytes).
  -- a point of clarification here: the small face bitmap is inside the EVE database, so part of svgdemo4.eve, but when exported to SVG it is separated, hence there are two files. Thus the total size for the SVG files is 1,020 + 1,852 = 2,872 bytes.
• Enormous difference in file size:
  Here we have shapes.gif (26K) and shapes.svg (1,220 bytes) -- and the SVG file isn't even compressed! -- as a .svgz file it becomes only 685 bytes! Note the GIF file is compressed with the usual LZW compression. (My apologies to the site I got these off -- I forgot where I got them, but will put a link back to you when I find out -- I also notice that the pictures are slightly different, but that is easy to fix with a bit of editing of the SVG file -- which I haven't done).
• Incredible advantages for detailed line drawings:
  For any kind of technical or organisational drawings, you can reduce file sizes enormously by having them as SVG files. For example, I exported one of Jorgen Carlsen's electrical drawings from EVE, via the clipboard as a monochrome gif, seqdiag2.gif (6,829 bytes) and as an SVG file, seqdiag2.svgz (1,285 bytes). They show the same information, but look at the difference in file size! This was one of Jorgen's early drawings, and does need to be tidied up, but it serves the purpose here.
  -- now, there's something you've just got to play with. If you have the seqdiag2.svgz appearing in your web browser, right-click somewhere inside the graphic, and choose "Zoom in" -- amazing, the place you clicked on gets enlarged. This is very interesting, because it means that you could have a very detailed diagram and zoom in at any part of it to see details.
  -- notice also, the right-click offers a text-find feature. Neat hey!
  -- right-click to popup help -- see how you can scroll/pan the image.
  -- is anyone game to design something to demonstrate this zooming and text-find? Maybe a map of a city? Remember, with EVE you can construct an enormous diagram, then export it as an SVG at any display-size desired -- however we would have to experiment with what size SVG file causes the Adobe SVG Viewer to choke.
• Documentation for a user manual:
  Look no further than my own EVE User Manual. This SVG file (24-bit color) is 2,658 bytes (created in EVE of course), while the equivalent GIF (8-bit color) is 16,763 bytes (that's one-sixth the size!!!)...
  

   

Outside downloads:

• Win-gz, for converting .SVG files to .SVGZ compressed files, that can be directly read by the Adobe SVG Viewer. Win-gz is freeware and the author's site is: http://home.hiwaay.net/~crispen/src.
  (Note, it outputs to .svg.gz and you have to rename to .svgz).

More SVG information on GOOSEE.COM site:

• The WE extension to the EVE User Manual documents features of EVE Web Edition and is regularly updated as more features get added. Also, look at this page if you have any difficulty with installing the Adobe SVG Viewer for your web browser.
• I have a handy SVG Links Page. A great jumping-off spot to learn more and get involved with the SVG community.

What am I planning for the future of EVE? Your one-year of free upgrades will get you in on this. Basically, I will be incrementally adding new useful features, aiming to cover more of the SVG specification. No promises regarding any schedule -- I tend to work in bursts of creativity, in between periods of torpidity.

Regards,
Barry Kauler

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