jQuery SVG vs. Raphael [closed] - javascript

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I'm working on an interactive interface using SVG and JavaScript/jQuery, and I'm trying to decide between Raphael and jQuery SVG. I'd like to know
What the trade-offs are between the two
Where the development momentum seems to be.
I don't need the VML/IE support in Raphael, or the plotting abilities of jQuery SVG. I'm primarily interested in the most elegant way to create, animate, and manipulate individual items on an SVG canvas.

I've recently used both Raphael and jQuery SVG - and here are my thoughts:
Raphael
Pros: a good starter library, easy to do a LOT of things with SVG quickly. Well written and documented. Lots of examples and Demos. Very extensible architecture. Great with animation.
Cons: is a layer over the actual SVG markup, makes it difficult to do more complex things with SVG - such as grouping (it supports Sets, but not groups). Doesn't do great w/ editing of already existing elements.
jQuery SVG
Pros: a jquery plugin, if you're already using jQuery. Well written and documented. Lots of examples and demos. Supports most SVG elements, allows native access to elements easily
Cons: architecture not as extensible as Raphael. Some things could be better documented (like configure of SVG element). Doesn't do great w/ editing of already existing elements. Relies on SVG semantics for animation - which is not that great.
SnapSVG as a pure SVG version of Raphael
SnapSVG is the successor of Raphael. It is supported only in the SVG enabled browsers and supports almost all the features of SVG.
Conclusion
If you're doing something quick and easy, Raphael is an easy choice. If you're going to do something more complex, I chose to use jQuery SVG because I can manipulate the actual markup significantly easier than with Raphael. And if you want a non-jQuery solution then SnapSVG is a good option.

For posterity, I'd like to note that I ended up choosing Raphael, because of the clean API and "free" IE support, and also because the active development looks promising (event support was just added in 0.7, for instance). However, I'll leave the question unanswered, and I'd still be interested to hear about others' experiences using Javascript + SVG libraries.

I'm a huge fan of Raphael and the development momentum seems to be going strong (version 0.85 was released late last week). Another big plus is that its developer, Dmitry Baranovskiy, is currently working on a Raphael charting plugin, g.raphael, which looks like its shaping up to be pretty slick (there are a few samples of the output from the early versions on Flickr).
However, just to throw another possible contender into the SVG library mix, Google's SVG Web looks very promising indeed (even though I'm not a big fan of Flash, which it uses to render in non-SVG compliant browsers). Probably one to watch, especially with the upcoming SVG Open conference.

Raphael is definitely easier to set up and get going, but note that there are ways of expressing things in SVG that are not possible in Raphael. As noted above there are no "groups". This implies that you can't implement layers of Coordinate Transfomations. Instead there is only one coordinate transform available.
If your design depends on nested coordinate transforms, Raphael is not for you.

Oh Raphael has moved on significantly since June.
There is a new charting library that can work with it and these are very eye catching.
Raphael also supports full SVG path syntax and is incorporating really advanced path methods. Come see 1.2.8+ at my site (Shameless plug) and then bounce over to the Dmitry's site from there.
http://www.irunmywebsite.com/raphael/raphaelsource.html

I think it is not totally unrelated but did you consider canvas? something like Process JS can make it simpler.

You should also take a look at svgweb. It uses flash to render svg in IE, and optionally on other browsers (in the cases where it supports more than the browser itself does).
http://code.google.com/p/svgweb/

I will throw my vote behind Raphael - the cross-browser support, clean API and consistent updates (so far) make it a joy to use. It plays very nicely with jQuery too. Processing is cool, but more useful as a demo for bleeding-edge stuff at the moment.

As a Javascript beginner, I found Rapahel samples not so easy, I recommend http://cancerbero.mbarreneche.com/raphaeltut, which is a real Step by step tutorial.

For those who don't care about IE6/IE7, the same guy who wrote Raphael built an svg engine specifically for modern browsers: Snap.svg .. they have a really nice site with good docs: http://snapsvg.io
snap.svg couldn't be easier to use right out of the box and can manipulate/update existing SVGs or generate new ones. You can read this stuff on the snap.io about page but here's a quick run down:
Cons
To make use of snap's features you must forgo on support for older browsers. Raphael supports browsers like IE6/IE7, snap features are only supported by IE9 and up, Safari, Chrome, Firefox, and Opera.
Pros
Implements the full features of SVG like masking, clipping, patterns, full gradients, groups, and more.
Ability to work with existing SVGs: content does not have to be generated with Snap for it to work with Snap, allowing you to create the content with any common design tools.
Full animation support using a straightforward, easy-to-implement JavaScript API
Works with strings of SVGs (for example, SVG files loaded via Ajax) without having to actually render them first, similar to a resource container or sprite sheet.
check it out if you're interested: http://snapsvg.io

Since it's not mentioned here yet:
You should also take a look at Dojox.drawing, which also provides good SVG drawing capabilities. It has a pretty impressive set of features. I'm just starting a project with it, but it seems to me that it's far superior (at least in terms of features) to Raphael and JQuerySVG.
This presentation convinced me to use it instead of Raphael/JQuerySVG:
http://www.slideshare.net/elazutkin/dojo-gfx-svg-in-the-real-world-2114082
Reference:
http://dojotoolkit.org/reference-guide/dojox/index.html
Reference on Dojocampus:
http://docs.dojocampus.org/dojox/drawing
Download Dojo (including Dojox):
http://dojotoolkit.org/download/

Another svg javascript library you might want to look at is d3.js. http://d3js.org/

I prefer using RaphaelJS because it has great cross-browser abilities. However, some SVG & VML effects can't be achieved with RaphaelJS (complex gradients...).
Google has also developped a library of its own to enable SVG support in IE:
http://svgweb.googlecode.com/files/svgweb-2009-08-20-B.zip

If you don't need VML and IE8 support then use Canvas (PaperJS for example). Look at latest IE10 demos for Windows 7. They have amazing animations in Canvas. SVG is not capable to do anything close to them.
Overall Canvas is available at all mobile browsers. SVG is not working at early versions of Android 2.0- 2.3 (as I know)
Yes, Canvas is not scalable, but it so fast that you can redraw the whole canvas faster then browser capable to scroll view port.
From my perspective Microsoft's optimizations provides means to use Canvas as regular GDI engine and implement graphics applications like we do them for Windows now.

Related

What is the best approach to producing graphical charts in a browser?

I've started a new open source project aimed at providing a quality project management experience. To do this, I need access to a set of chart tools (Flash is off the table), and very specifically one that includes a Gantt chart. I've done my homework and shopped around the web and I've more or less come to the conclusion that what I want doesn't exist, at least not for free. So chances are I'm going to have to write this from scratch.
If I was going to create a Gantt chart with which people could interact with (which I'm assuming means having excellent DOM support), then what technology would I use? Should I go with SVG? Or HTML5 Canvas? Something else? Your suggestions are much appreciated.
Also, a requirement would be that whatever library I use needs to be actively supported in the community (i.e. no dead projects).
I would not think there would be many free options as this is a niche-need.
JS Option:
http://www.jsgantt.com/
http://code.google.com/p/flot/
Promising Perl modules:
http://cpansearch.perl.org/src/DARNOLD/DBD-Chart-0.82/dbdchart.html
http://search.cpan.org/~awestholm/Project-Gantt-1.03/Gantt.pm
Update:
There's been amazing advancements in terms of interactive/web charts in the past few years. Shortly before your question was asked, D3.js was created, which has become a generally accepted library, which uses SVG to implement visualizations. Here's a basic example and a more advanced implementation using D3. Note; Gantt charting is still in its infancy; D3 will most likely revisit it in the future.
The argument of Canvas vs SVG is one that has been considered many times. You should read this article by Microsoft; How to Choose Between Canvas and SVG for your Site. Basically, if you have many elements you have to display, Canvas will perform much better. If accessibility is a priority, SVG is better.
In terms of working with Canvas vs SVG, canvas feels more fluid and it is certainly more capable with WebGL, but SVG is more transportable. They both have their merits.
If you're going to make your own, I'd recommend the SVG library Raphaël, which allows you to draw things using SVG fairly easily. It's also simple to make mouse event handlers and other things, which you could use to make it interactive.
I haven't had much experience creating interactive graphics with canvas, but my instinct is that it would be hard to handle mouse events since you don't have "elements" to add event listeners to.

What is the most widely-used Javascript graphics library that is the most cross-browser compatible?

I know there are tons of great graphics libraries for javascript...
Now, I know that there are other questions asking for graphics library suggestions. But none of them address the following issues:
What is the most widely-used javascript-graphics library right now?
Can it handle text, rotation, arcs, bezier-style line geometries, and is compatible with at least FF, IE(7/8), Safari, and Chrome...
Also, because of my client's fears of required plug-ins that users need to add to their browser, it needs to be something that can load on-the-fly and not require the user to permanently install anything external.
Does such an animal exist?
I am looking for your experienced opinion on this one.
For cross platform support I generally find I can trust Raphael to do the job.
I'd look at processingjs first.
http://processingjs.org/
I suggest using the html5 <canvas/> element with the 2d graphics API.
Although the canvas element isn't supported in IE, you can make it work with excanvas.js from http://code.google.com/p/explorercanvas/.
Explorer canvas is a simple javascript include that emulates canvas element support using vector graphics. On the other browsers, you will have canvas support.
I used this approach to make a realtime scrolling trend control that worked across browsers.

2D Canvas in Browser

I'm looking for a framework or library to use the browser as a 2D "drawing" tool.
Acctually drawing is not the right word. It should be a adding, removing and moving around of 2D objects and images on a canvas. The objects should be graphically connectable. So - kind a visio in a browser
I guess it's a bit to much for a javascript library like dojo or prototype but what about a flash framework like flex or openlaszolo?
Thanks!
Most modern browsers now support the <canvas> tag in HTML5, which does pretty much what you're asking for. You can draw directly onto it using Javascript. Also in most modern browsers is support for the SVG graphic format, which again can be manipulated via Javascript to do some very funky effects. The difference between canvas and SVG is that canvas is for bitmap graphics and SVG is vectors. But both are good for 2D drawing.
If you need a library or framework on top of that, you could try something like Raphael, which is a good JS library for drawing vector graphics. It even supports older versions of Explorer, which is a bonus. (if SVG isn't available it falls back to VML).
iLog Exlixir offers some graphing components which would probably help.
OpenLaszlo can definitely do this. Here is a link to an OpenLaszlo application that is an online alternative to Visio:
http://www.gliffy.com/
I also have personally developed and maintained an OpenLaszlo video editing application over the past 6 years that allows you to drag images and videos to different positions and layers similar to what you describe, you can try it here if you want:
http://www.sarolta.tv/web/sarolta-tools/template-editor.html

Javascript drawing library? [closed]

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Any suggestion for a JavaScript interactive drawing library? Just need to draw lines, polygons, texts of different colors. IE/Firefox/Opera/Safari compatible.
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Raphael is pretty cool for that, and works across browsers since it uses VML (for MSIE) and SVG (for everything else).
John Resig's Processing.js is a nice framework for that.
You can use the canvas object directly to draw in 2D. IE requires the excanvas library.
http://developer.mozilla.org/En/Drawing_Graphics_with_Canvas
Try http://www.walterzorn.de/en/jsgraphics/jsgraphics_e.htm. It's the best I've found (without resorting to SVG) and works in most browsers without add-ins.
Drawing text with the canvas tag is a big pain. Your options are to use regular divs absolutely positioned in the right places, or find/write a font layout engine (example), or wait for a new standard to be implemented that lets you draw text. SVG deals with this much better.
In IE you have ExplorerCanvas to simulate the canvas API with IE's own VML markup. However, native VML can do text on a path and such things much like SVG. I think theoretically if you want complex text handling you'd want SVG and VML like the Raphael library that Dan mentioned.
You might also consider Flash for a moment before starting.
As mentioned above, canvas is the way you should go. IE doesn't support it natively, so you'll need to download ExCanvas to ensure cross-browser compatibility. I'd recommend looking at Ajaxian for some projects that use the canvas tag.
Checkout the jQuery Drawing plugin, and you can also look at the Mozilla Canvas reference and tutorial.
Also mxGraph. This doesn't use excanvas for IE. Excanvas is way slower than using VML, specifically, re-using the same VML nodes rather than deleting, adding DOM nodes for redrawing. This is often a overlooked point, but excanvas on IE performance is just awful.
Depending on how cross-browser you need to be and your goal of doing the output, you might look into the Canvas element and the related javascript.
Canvas
D3.js
D3.js is a JavaScript library for manipulating documents based on
data. D3 helps you bring data to life using HTML, SVG, and CSS. D3’s
emphasis on web standards gives you the full capabilities of modern
browsers without tying yourself to a proprietary framework, combining
powerful visualization components and a data-driven approach to DOM
manipulation.
Take a look at this discussion too.

Scripting SVG

I'm considering developing a website similar to stackoverflow, but the answers may also consist of drawings (schematics, in this case). I want to have an area in the answer form where they can make this schematic without requiring special plugins, etc.
Are we to the point where SVG has or should have critical mass soon (1-2 years) such that designing a website where script-run SVG as a primary feature is reasonable (ie, requiring Firefox or another SVG/AJAX compliant browser)?
What are some good resources for learning cross platform SVG scripting (likely in javascript)?
-Adam Davis
Raphael looks like an interesting take on the problem of cross-browser vector graphics.
Unfortunately, I don't have an answer, but I do have three pointers to projects that you could look at.
The first is the Lively Kernel by Dan Ingalls (yes, the Dan Ingalls) at Sun Labs. It is an implementation of a Smalltalk Virtual World in JavaScript on top of SVG. More precisely, it is an implementation of the Morphic GUI framework from Squeak Smalltalk in JavaScript using SVG and a port of (parts of) Squeak Smalltalk in JavaScript.
Or, if you're not a Smalltalker and the above doesn't make sense to you: it's an Operating System, written in JavaScript with the JavaScript interpreter as the CPU, SVG as the graphics card and the browser as the computer.
This is about as extreme as it gets, when it comes to JavaScript and SVG. And it only fully works in Safari 3 and partly in Firefox 3, although there is an experimental port to Internet Explorer as well.
The second project is John Resig's Processing.js port of the Processing visualization language to JavaScript. It uses the <canvas> element instead of SVG precisely because of the problems that you mentioned. This one however, only works in Firefox 3.
The third one is Real-Time 3D in JavaScript by Useless Pickles. It uses only JavaScript, DOM and CSS and no SVG or <canvas> or Flash or whatever. And it is portable to almost any browser, including Internet Explorer 7 and up. Doing 2D should be even easier than this.
Between those three projects you should be able to find some inspiration and also to find some people who tried to push the envelope with JavaScript and SVG or JavaScript and Graphics and can tell you what works and what doesn't.
Conclusion: doing cross-browser SVG or cross-browser <canvas> is nigh impossible, but with a little bit of craziness, cross-browser graphics without SVG or <canvas> is possible.
SVGWeb is a script that adds near-native SVG capabilities to IE using flash. All the other major browsers support SVG.
http://code.google.com/p/svgweb/
1/ probably never - if IE wanted to add it, then I would have though it would have done so by now; but there are workarounds using SilverLight and Gecko to provide rendering. On the other hand, there are cross-browser graphics APIs available. I've done largish front ends using XULRunner and SVG, but nothing on the web which had to cater for IE.
2/ The two I referred to most often were the SVG pages on mozilla.org and this SVG DOM reference . All of my SVG links are here on delicious
There's one existing editor at http://www.bpel4chor.org/editor/; also if all you want is schematics where all arcs are on a grid, you can do that quite well using divs and images without SVG. Or you could just go the lo-fi route
As #jwmittag mentioned <canvas> is an option.
It works in Saffari and Firefox 3, Opera 9, and people are developing support for IE.
You could easily capture mouse clicks associated with the current tool and properties.
Redrawing the canvas on every page display.
I just finished a project using <canvas> and it's a simple and very powerful API to work with, especially if you have ever done any OpenGL or Cairo work.
Good Luck, sounds like a cool project.

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