I regularly find myself using https://yqnn.github.io/svg-path-editor/ - I wish Inkscape were that intuitive when handling the innards of <path>s, letting you convert between absolute/relative values and so on
I'll add one of my favorite SVG tools... a tool to crop SVGs. Sometimes the SVG has a wide border around it or something funky that makes dealing with centering it difficult. This tool just crops it to the visible elements:
Surprised this is being discussed here. It's worth noting that SVGOMG runs SVGO 3.0.0 while the latest version is 3.2.0 (so run SVGO locally for the latest optimizations), but I understand that once https://github.com/svg/svgo/pull/1943 is merged Jake will release an updated version of SVGOMG.
I've had this one in my bookmaeks as well for more than 5 years :)
Worth noting it deems itself "SVGOs missing GUI" (and does a splendid job at that). If one needs to batch process files or sth like that, svgo's CLI is still there.
Didn’t expect this to blow up on Hacker News on the weekend! We’re a small company based out of Vancouver, BC that creates software tools (https://www.checkersoftware.ca/).
Thanks for posting it and thank you all for your kind words.
In most of the examples, there's many paths with long sequences of numbers, so it's not obvious which path corresponds to which shape in the image.
I wonder if you could make it temporarily change the color or outline of a path when the cursor is on its code in the editor? (and similarly for text selections)
I actually tried to implement this exact feature about a year ago, but gave up after a day of working on it because it seemed too difficult. Given this feedback, it might be worth trying again. Thank you!
Not the person you're replying to - but in my experience, it can be easier to put the SVG in a component by itself to make changes to it wherever it may be used by just navigating to the path of the SVG itself rather than digging up the actual component it's used in.
There are very minor differences between what's a valid SVG and what's valid JSX, and web apps like this one will often offer to translate those fields for you as well as add the rest of the "component stuff" to make it copy-pastable.
Presumably, it would let you dynamically update the SVG the same way that React lets you dynamically update HTML. As simple examples, imagine an SVG clock or some map-based data visualization.
Wow! I just fiddled with it a little bit and it seems very useful for when I finally decide to tackle the small problems[1] that I encounter with the SVG's that I use. The UI is easy to understand and it gives clear feedback on changes. I definitely bookmarked this.
[1] The problems that I had with some SVG's is that they seemed to stretch the page wide while loading (in a flash) and then finally settling on their intended size after a split second. I remember that I searched for solutions and fiddled with viewbox, widht and height, but to no avail (they were in the hundreds of pixels). What can I do to mitigate this initial 'stretch'?
I’d be curious to see if you could convert svg to another format on the fly faster than the browser does. From my layman perspective that behavior sounds like initializing a bitmap to a max size and then parsing the svg into it.
I don't know about any bitmaps in my code, but I definitely should look into it, as it feels like it should be solvable, especially with SVGs. I opted for SVGs so I could give my icons the user-selected background color with CSS.
maybe something like: your canvas is set to an initial size and then a smaller SVG is drawn inside it. When that's saved for display the resulting .png isn't the same size as the canvas so the browser moves things around a little?
What would happen if you started your SVG output by drawing a canvas-dimensioned border?
Really nice tool. It has a lot in one place. Normally I use phpStorm and that does not have SVGOMG style optimisation things but the code prettifiers work.
This could do with some better examples to start editing with, using different primitives than just path. A grid would be nice too.
Examples, a search icon is a 'circle' and a 'line' with a 'viewbox' to get right, if you place the origin in the centre of the circle then you don't need x and y values, just a radius. In this way a silly level of optimisation can be made.
A typical search icon will have hundreds of points defined with 'NASA numbers' (six decimal places) and that mashed into a path. Really you just need a circle defined in integers, not Adobe Illustrator exported nonsense.
SVG is an artistic medium and I really like it. However, artists don't see it that way and neither do developers. Hence most SVGs are not really in the spirit of what is possible. It is more than just a file format.
SVGs are just so powerful. Last week there was a problem with a parallax transparent image with a filter: drop-shadow looking awful on mac safari and ios. Solution was to create an outline of the image in an SVG and use an svg filter with feGaussianBlur for a drop shadow. I feel like I'm only scratching the surface on what's possible with them. I've been using svgomg for my optimizations, but this looks to have quite a bit more useful features.
I don't think it's logistically or politically possible, but I really wish DWG, DXF and DGN would be replaced by SVG. That 2D drawings for the AEC industry are unusable by the majority of programs is absurd.
It does, when you save. Under export, there is also a "Plain SVG" option which excludes the xmlns:inkscape and xmlns:sodipodi namespaces and therefore eliminates quite a bit.
They seem to have gone the Subscription Model. I thought, for $10, I'd buy and keep it as I need them a few times a year. I still love Monodraw for being that tool I bought, kept it, use it a few times, but rarely and happy with it.
I was generating some SVGs from text last week and thus editor just refused to paarse the generated content. However this viewer worked just fine: https://codebeautify.org/svg-viewer
Excellent. I love that the link takes you straight to the editor, browser keeps the history, clear design, a joy to use. Made me click around just to see who did it so I can applaud a job well done.
I’ve been using SVGs in my robot mapping software and it’s amazing how powerful they are. I design them using css custom properties (variables) so that I can style icon colours, borders, etc. at runtime.
Proprietary so I unfortunately can’t show, but I develop a Web-GIS for lidar mapping of warehouse environments, annotating the space for driving rules (urban planning / Sim City), and real-time site monitoring/issue fixing (like an RTS strategy game) for >10k robots worldwide.
The library of SVGs on the left is a great feature in itself. I wish a couple of sites like this become super popular so that all of us can both contribute and utilize great vector art.
We don’t currently have a self-hosted solution, but if you have a specific need, you can contact us at https://www.svgviewer.dev/contact and we’ll see what we can do.
From the terms of service: “You agree not to reproduce, duplicate, copy, sell, resell or exploit any portion of the Service, use of the Service, or access to the Service without SVGViewer's express written permission.” (https://www.svgviewer.dev/terms)
Apart from that, they let you store and share SVGs on their servers, so it’s not purely client-side.
Good thing this doesn't apply to fair use, which allows you to have an offline copy for yourself (assuming it isn't for commercial purposes, and you can make your own offline copy).
Even if it were a plain HTML page, or a simple, single-file Javascript web app, that could either be hosted on a remote server that you don't control (as this is), or can be downloaded and hosted on your own computer or server allowing you to modify it.
And although that sort of thing would mean you can just download it straight from where it's being hosted from a technical point of view (for things where there isn't any backend or hidden logic in code at all) there's still the legal question as shown in logic8's comment.
I didn’t mean it’s a bad question, I just assumed they thought there was a server process involved. But yeah you can self-host a static JS app easily, or put it on GitHub Pages or whatever, if you’re worried about it going offline.
You can probably use ChatGPT to generate SVGs from a description of what you want. Like stable diffusion for simple vector graphics. Maybe even animations.
Haven’t yet done it myself and can’t verify right now, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it worked well to brainstorm a favicon or some other symbol.
ChatGPT does not have the strong understanding of the connection between ideas and 2D/3D space to draw anything with SVG. It’s limitations in this regard are quite apparent, I don’t think it could even draw a smiley face.
Won’t help for tweaking a logo for an app or adjusting a diagram for a presentation. AI generated images do not have direct control. It’s like trying to do tech support with an elderly relative over the phone.
Works well enough for simple shapes, but there's already such a huge amount of free resources (iconbuddy.app) and for paid, I just use a subscription to vectorstock and Illustrator. I don't ever find the need to use ChatGPT. I use ChatGPT for doing stuff like setting up complex gradient animations or filters in SVGs and that works quite well.
reply