SWF v. SVG - Which Should You Choose?

In comparison, SVG is still a new contender. SVG is based on XML, the eXtensible Mark-up Language, which means that it can be very easily scripted. The following code is SVG for a rectangle.

<?xml version="1.0" standalone="no"?>  
<!DOCTYPE svg PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD SVG 1.0//EN"  
"http://www.w3.org/TR/2001/REC-SVG-20010904/DTD/svg10.dtd">  
<svg width="500" height="500">  
<rect x="111" y="78" width="187" height="160"  
style="fill:rgb(192,192,255);stroke:rgb(0,0,128);stroke-width:1"/>  
</svg>

At first glance this may look complicated, but to an XML developer the code makes perfect, simple sense. By obeying a few rules identified by the svg10.dtd file, any SVG graphic can be created using only humble Notepad.

With XML at its core, SVG's file format is more open to programmers, which is great. The only problem is that most designers are not programmers.

That said, programs that export files in the SVG file format are now emerging. The most popular is Adobe's Illustrator 10. Adobe has placed a massive stake in the ground with SVG (you can visit their SVG centre here), with many of their products already supporting SVG. Beyond this, there are about a dozen additional graphics tools that export to SVG, such as Beatware's e-Picture 2.0, Corel Draw 10 and ITEDO's IsoDraw 5.0.

Audience -- The Holy Grail

Both SVG and Flash are growing and maturing as products. Both are scalable to small computer devices, such as Palm Pilots, and robust enough to be part of Websites that receive millions of hits. But there has to be a bottom line, and it simply comes down to this: the Flash player is pre-installed on most operating systems and is accessible to greater than 97% of the people who use the Web; the latest version of Adobe's SVG viewer only became available at the beginning of November 2001, and still has a limited penetration rate. In addition, viewing SVG files requires the download of a hefty 2.3 Mb plugin (as currently there are no Web browsers that natively support SVG). This is large when compared to the 219 Kb plugin for Flash.

Even though SVG is based upon the successful XML format, it currently has a very limited user base. The single reason for creating a Website is to allow the greatest number of users to interact with your content -- if they can't see it, they won't be bale to interact with it.

While SVG does show some great promise and may well be an exciting technology, the current limits to its penetration mean that, for the foreseeable future, Flash will remain the most popular and viable vector program.