I've recently become interested in the SVG file format, and in vector graphics overall. After some searching, the "best" free program for SVG editing I found was Sodipodi. As with a lot of free software, it was made for Linux, but ported to Windows. Because of this (I think) it is very buggy, and prone to crashing often. Like a good trooper, I just save often and shut up. At work, we have a copy of CorelDraw 10, which exports to SVG. Caveat: Corel can't open Sodipodi SVGs, and Sodipodi can't open Corel SVGs. Funny how standards work. Oh, and Sodipodi's export to PNG function is broken, at least in the Windows build.
Anyway, my questions for all of the graphic designers (wannabe and pros alike):
1. What is a good, free editor for SVG? And yes, I know its just text, but I'm not that artistic that I can imagine the layout in my head and then write it out.
2. A good SVG viewer, other than the Adobe one. I haven't even tried it tho, gonna do that tomorow. Wonder if it's a standalone or just a browser plugin...
3. An SVG rasterizer. To convert from SVG to a raster format. As I said before, Sodipodi's export is broken. Corel's does work, but I don't have the money to buy Corel, and it won't import Sodipodi's SVGs anyway. The only one I've found is Batik, which is Java. Gonna try it tomorow too. It actually surprized me that there are very few free SVG rasterizers out there. Actually lemme start a new paragraph...
When I try to export from Sodi, it displays a text window with SVG2PNG and some numbers and then it crashes. Whatever. I searched for SVG2PNG, and as far as I can tell, its a library, not a program. Fine. My question is... why does Sodi need a separate rasterizer? I pretend to be a programmer now and then, but I've never coded a graphics app. Couldnt Sodi just create a hidden window somewhere with the proper resolution, "display" the SVG there like it does on the other editing windows, then save that window to a file on the disk? I mean, it can already "rasterize" the file cause thats how I see it when I'm playing with it!
Oh well, hopefully someone out there will have some experience with SVGs. Now to hoping that SVG support is turned on in the next version of Mozilla.