Commons talk:Transition to SVG/Archive 1

For discussions in 2005 and 2006.

Untitled Discussion (re. flags)

About flags: it isn't enough just to create a flag if there isn't SVG and PNG exists. It is needed also to check that result is correct representation of flag. I have pointed out in Category talk:Redundant already some, which have thought to be ok, but ain't. ... as long there is not clear that SVG version is really correct, one should hold back to mark images for deleting

Also i'd would be happy to see here SVG (current) drawbacks (no transparency in IE etc.) clearly stated, not just encouranging tech inclined contributors to do they stuff and forgetting users. --TarmoK 07:42, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

That's why people shouldn't do the task alone on their own and that's why an commons admin always (not only in this situation) has to check the so called redundancy before deleting. Everyone has to use his brain there is no automatism. The IE problems: They are in our very special case irrelevant as the SVG images get on the fly scaled to pixel images within the articles by MediaWiki software. So every browser can display the images regardless if it knows SVG or not. Arnomane 20:07, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

Please use IE and see yourself: open this Image:Commons-logo.svg in FireFox and then in IE. Do you see difference? (hint: transparent background "changes" to gray) --TarmoK 07:58, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

This has absolutely nothing to do with SVG. This is IE's inability to handle transparent png's. This problem is known to Microsoft for years but they are too ignorant to fix even the simplest bugs in their browser. You can take every png file with transparent background - you will get the same result in IE. Arnomane 08:24, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

Well, good luck to blame thousands and millions of users who happen to use IE to browse Wikipedia. And don't care that they happen to be (much) bigger group of people who are using Wikipedia compared to the ones who doing changes according their liking even if the result is worse to the majority ("it looks good in my screen").

It's irrelevant how wonderful is SVG and how "bad" is IE or Microsoft, if one cares cosurfers, then s/he won't make things worse. --TarmoK 18:54, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

This project looks like a complete waste of time, cpu and database resources to me. Changing hundreds of pages to replace a 23Kb .png with a 2Kb .svg probably requires a lot more database storage, even with just storing differences, than we save with the 21Kn difference. As an added note, some of the colours of the new flags look incorrect. TeunSpaans 20:36, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

SVG has many advantages. Especially if you think of printing or modifying a graphic (like labelling in another language). Printig poor resolution graphics with compression artifacts isn't very professional at all. SVG helps there a lot. And of course why not uploading the svg-flags from openclipart.org as the PNG-versions are anyways created from the high quality SVG files there. And well you can also consider Wikipedia a waste of time and resources, it al depends from personal opinions. ;-) Arnomane 00:58, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

I have no problem printing or modifying the current png graphics. I am unable to modify the svg flag. And no, I am not going to install another new software for your hobbies. And you didnt reply to my last objection. But go ahead and spoil the usefullness of this project. TeunSpaans 22:15, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

Do you know the difference between a 10 times recompressed png and the original? I guess not. And please read w:SVG first. Thank you. Arnomane 20:43, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

...and you going to say the same thing (for example) to schoolchild when s/he tries to create shoolwork and found in Commons suitable image, which doesn't work in her/his computer? As long SVG is not widely supported is good to leave proper PNG versions, not maniacally deleting them --TarmoK 18:54, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

I never said immediatly burn all PNGs. I created this page in order to organize a smooth transition as there were people simply marking widly used png-flags with speedy deletion and such. So I'm the wrong adress for your rant.

Beside that I'll show you something: Watch this with you favourite Internet Explorer version: Image:Flag_of_Germany.svg. Kewl isn't it? You can even see this flag although your browser does not support SVG. So before positing rant about silly usage of SVG here, please read how it get's technically provided by the MediaWiki software. So this intelligent server side SVG-render-support works with every browser. But yes now you will ask: What's the advantage if it gets converted to PNG on the fly? Well you can scale it to a pixel image of any size (A SVG renderer does nothing else than making a pixel image in a given size). That's why it gets called Scalable Vector Graphics. In case of an rescaled pixel image the result is not pleasant in case it get's upscaled, what unavoidable happens if you want a print version of an article (reasonable printing resolution starts at 600 DPI, a screen has 72 DPI average). Arnomane 00:22, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

The SVG renderer does not work properly

See Image:French_government.svg. Weird dashed lines. David.Monniaux 09:46, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

Hum that would need some investigation by people that know SVG more than me. My personal assumption is that your SVG-export-module creates some code that can't be handled by the MediaWiki renderer (have seen those artefacts with different SVG-export-modules and with others not). Arnomane 20:07, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

The dashed lines are because of the "stroke-dasharray" property you specified for the two dashed lines. If you tell the lines to be dashed, don't be surprised when they end up dashed. User:dbenbenn 14:22, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

Quality of SVG flags

The current quality of more complicated SVG flags (I do not talk about simple striped flags) is low. Most of them you would not want see printed out in a big format. Use a SVG viewer and editor and zoom in on one or several of the following images (just examples, you could try this with almost all flags containing some detailed emblem): Image:Flag_of_Cyprus.svg Image:Flag_of_Croatia.svg Image:Flag_of_Dominica.svg Image:Flag_of_Egypt.svg Image:Flag_of_El_Salvador.svg

Most of the drawings are worse than pixel graphics even after moderate zooming, because the details are drawn in a basically childish manner.--Mevsfotw 13:55, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

But it is in any case better than the 300px png-flags provided here and anyways most of the png-flags are directly derived from the svg's of openclipart.org. And well I suppose you found a new working field for improvements done by you. :-) As you seem to know how to make those svgs non-childish simply improve them, the svg-code is there. Arnomane 16:39, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

But that's what I am doubting: that they are in any case better than the PNGs. I had provided some flags (in PNG-format), that are now tagged redundant, but the SVGs are certainly not better, i.e. showing the details much more sloppily. For other flags compare for instance Image:Flag_of_the_Arab_Republic_of_Egypt_1984.png to Image:Flag_of_Egypt.svg (the latter one even lacking the inscription at the bottom of the eagle)--Mevsfotw 23:36, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

Ok you found a problem in the svg-version of this flag. But can you read the arab inscript in the png-version? I highly doubt that it is readable at all (can't say it for sure as I can't read arab, but the letters have to much artifacts). And well as long as there are some problemes like this in a certain svg-replacement I suppose no admin will delete it if you alert on these problem (And I guess if you alert the creator of the flag, he will try to fix it). Arnomane 07:28, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

I'm agree with Mevsfotw. And besides most flag were not created, they were simply uploaded. --Perconte 11:16, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

Sorry I don't understand "most flag were not created, they were simply upload". Can you explain that to me? Someone has indeed created them somehow at some time and in case they are from openclipart.org you definitly know who created them. Well I guess that you meant the svg's were created from people that are not active at Wikimedia Commons. Well the same applies to _most_ png-flags (and most of them are in fact derived from the svgs from openclipart.org as openclipart.org also provides png versions of an svg image). Beside that my main concern was in creating this "transition" page to alert all involved persons that want to use svg that there are some important points to think about (something that was not the case at the beginnings of the transition, perhapes someone remembers some rude debates about "irrelevant" png-flags). But I fear some people never understand that my aim was to alert people in order to avoid frustration during a transition (which cannot happen over night; Avatar and I got similar complains after creating check-usage that we are responsible for people marking images as not used and deleting them after using that tool: All we wanted to help with was to avoid image "craters" in as many as possible wikimedia wikis...). Arnomane 12:59, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

I don't like your downtalking. You havent offered solutions, just downtalking. TeunSpaans 21:14, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

I fear that you did not read why I created that page. There was a Commons admin here that speedy deleted PNG-flags that were in use. That was very bad and caused much bad feelings towards Wikimedia Commons as you can imagine. So I have created this page that people learn a bit about svg and that they first think a bit and then replace a png with a SVG. Nothing more but also nothing less. I do not force someone into something here at this page (apart that I want people to think first to an action) but this is just my oppinion. ;-) Arnomane 21:54, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

Animated SVGs

Hello. I don't know if this is the right place to ask this question, but hope it is :)
Is the Mediawiki or rather the external tool used for the SVG->PNG conversion compatible to animated SVGs? Will it create an animated GIF or will it render the file without the animation-tags? If not: are there free tools (for Linux) which can do this task locally, so that I could upload an animated GIF in addition to the SVG? --Boris23 20:15, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

The software is in principle able handling that but it is turned off for security reasons. So only static SVGs are possible :-( Arnomane 21:56, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

Out of curiosity: Do you know what's the security reason? I would understand if it would deny dynamic content like Java Script, but it should allow <animate*>-Tags, shouldn't it?

That's just as weird as Denying <title> for for security reasons, so I would bet some cents, that the IE is involved in this too. ;-)

Anyway, thanks for the answer, Arnomane! --Boris23 17:16, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Yes animations would be cool especially in technical articles. I don't know why they are against this tag. Perhapes the svg-png-converter makes trouble with animations or whatever (the converter sometimes handles svg's wrong that you can display correctly with other svg-viewers). The only anser I got was "security reason". Arnomane 02:44, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

It is a potential denial of service attack. If a way can be found to prevent that, it might be turned on. Brion is the person to dsicuss this with - security is mainly his area. Jamesday 06:01, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

Problem with CSS and #id

Please have a look at Image:Sehnentrapezformel.svg. The CSS of the SVG in the first version did not work well. After putting the same CSS into style="..." it worked fine. Is this a known problem with #id in CSS or did I do something wrong. The SVG is valid according to W3-Validator. --Boris23 18:55, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

A way to simplify image replacement - use a bot

I made this comment at Category_talk:Redundant#A_way_to_simplify_this, but I don't know how many people read that. So: User:Orgullomoore has developed a bot that can "orphan" an image that is about to be deleted (ie remove any links to it in any uses that show in CheckUsage). He says it would be very easy to develop a bot that substitutes an image for another one in a similar fashion. It seems to me this would be very useful for this category and especially for the SVG conversion. What do people think? Could we simplify and speed up this whole process? See User_talk:Orgullomoore#Orgullobot for more discussion. Thanks, pfctdayelise (translate?) 12:56, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

Technincal and policy corrections

I've updated the main page of this project with correct descriptons of server resource usage and also ppinted out the problems with replacement. The biggest problem is that Commons is an image library for everyone in the world and it is impossible to know who needs the PNG image with its copyright and license information by only checking the projects the Wikimedia Foundation hosts or by using search engines. Anyone deleting PNG versions instead of suggesting the SVG one in a commont on the PNG images is in effect undermining Commons by making it an image library people can't trust - because it's throwing away the license records they must. We even insist on that license proof ourselves so we should understand this problem... It's good to use SVG versions but that doesn't mean we can delete the PNG ones as well. Jamesday 06:01, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

Well Wikimedia Commons is in the first line an image library for Wikimedia projects. Thanks to our own efforts we now can determine where an image gets used inside Wikimedia projects which was not the case when the Commons started. So now we are able to visualize how big our resonsibility is. But we frankly do not care about non-Wikimedia projects but are very sensible towards Wikimedia projects (but for sure we aren't free of failures as everyone). Those outisde projects can use the regular database dumps. We have enough to do considering all Wikimedia projects and would only care about specific issues of outside projects if they substantial contribute by themselves. Arnomane 11:47, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

Agree. Furthermore, just because someone out in the world uses an image from here doesn't mean we are required to keep it here. And it's apparently not even a real issue: I have never heard anyone complain about us "throwing away license records". User:dbenbenn 17:45, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

Commons was founded to be an image library for free images for use anywhere, not only in projects the Foundation is hosting. If Commons wants to abandon that original objective and the Wikimedia Foundation board approves an image repository only for projects it hosts, then that's fine and those who want a general image library can do that somewhere else. Jamesday 05:31, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

Jamesday. Maybe you wanna start reading what was Commons aimed at? "Commons is a repository of freely licensed images that are potential useful for any Wikimedia project." Nothing more but also nothing less. We don't want to be yet another flickr where people upload tons of holiday and party pics and lots of nice newly created photo artwork. This is stuff that does not belong into Commons. Arnomane 15:30, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

Policy proposal:No deletion of improved versions of images

Hi folks. Please feel free to comment on this: Commons:Village pump/Policy proposal:No deletion of improved versions of images. pfctdayelise (translate?) 00:54, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

Multilingual SVGs

I don't know if this is the right place to ask this or not; if not, please direct me to the appropriate location. I am making a map of Sudan in the SVG format, and I am wondering if there is a way to make the map labels multilingual (so that an English speaker can see English labels, a German speaker can see German labels, and so on). If not, my plan is to include labels in several languages, but set all but one language to "display:none". That way it is easy for a speaker of another language to "turn on" the appropriate labels. —Bkell 23:15, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

In priniple this works inside one single SVG but this requires AFAIK scripting capabilities of SVG. SVGs with scripting are rejected by the MediaWiki software at upload out of security reasons. Even if it would accept it wouldn't make use of it because the SVG gets converted serverside on the fly during usage in a page to a png in the given size (so that every browser can display it). So in order to translate a SVG upload for every language a translated file. Arnomane 06:54, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

Most importantly, upload the blank base file! Another idea is to use numbers as labels, then in the image caption say what each number means. But that is not ideal for a map. pfctdayelise (translate?) 08:18, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

I think my plan at this point is to use the "display:none" trick, and I guess I'll upload various versions of the map (an English version at "Map of Sudan.svg", for example, and a German version at "Karte Sudans.svg"). And I will upload my "working version" as well, which will include everything and be primarily useful for other editors. There is also discussion about this topic at en:Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#Multilingual SVGs. —Bkell (talk) 22:55, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

Rendering Problems - Ideas?

While the ability to use SVG's in MediaWiki is great, in my experience it seems to be the case that the renderer's support has been less so, no?

So far I've created a number of SVG diagrams (using Illustrator). Unfortunately, I have yet to produce one that consistently renders, meaning meaning that it will either render perfectly, or not at all (depending on the px width specified). As a consequence before posting a new diagram to a page I must finesse the size to find one that works correctly (curiously - this does not seem to tied to the specific image... I can upload 2 duplicate copies, both of which will behave differently).

Does anybody know if this is a known problem? if so - what can I do to correct it? — Mobius 07:32, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Using Adobe Illustrator does seem to cause problems. If you can, download Inkscape, and after saving your SVG in Adobe, open it in Inkscape and save it as "plain SVG". I have no idea why this would help but people say it does.

Since your files are rather small in size I guess this is the problem. It's those !ENTITY lines, somehow... pfctdayelise (translate?) 08:29, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Piping the Illustrator SVGs through InkScape worked splendid, thanks — Mobius 08:41, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Is it possible in french ?

My english is not very good, particulary when the text talk about technic things. It will be good to have this page in french.

I've just created .SVG trigram, what to do this the png one ? deleted ? VIGNERON 21:20, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

You can ask someone at Commons:Bistro to translate it. Mark the PNG as {{Superseded}}. pfctdayelise (translate?) 05:33, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Request for PNG to SVG conversion

I recently uploaded several images of Polish flags and coat of arms: Image:Flaga Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej.PNG, Image:Flaga z godlem Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej.PNG, Image:Bandera wojenna Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej.PNG, Image:Herb Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej.PNG. The shades and shapes are more accurate and correct than those in the images that were already on Commons: Image:Flag of Poland.svg, Image:Flag of Poland (state).svg , Image:Naval Ensign of Poland.svg (all uploaded by Denelson83), and Image:Herb Polski.svg (uploaded by Dbenbenn, so they should replace the old ones. The problem is they are in PNG format. Could someone please convert my images into SVG format and upload them on Commons? Kpalion 14:58, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

Zooming of SVG and Sources for LaTeX (Metafont) svg-fonts

I am rather sure, I should not ask this on this talk-page, so pardon me and tell me where to do so. Questions:

1. If I combine <text> letters</text> with svg-shapes in a svg-file, my browsers' zoom-function CTRL-PLUS magnifies the letters, but not the shapes. (Tried this with firefox, seamonkey and konqueror). Is there a clean solution?
2. Is there a internet-source for svg-fonts from Metafont-sources?

Could someone help?--KleinKlio 10:14, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

to 2.: I mean to include it as src"http..." in a xml-way. --KleinKlio 10:17, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

Does anyone know of a tool to optimize SVG?

Adobe Illustrator adds lots of proprietary binary blocks in its SVG exports. Is there a program I can use to optimize this out before uploading? – flamurai 03:38, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

You can load the SVG into Inkscape and save as "plain SVG". --80.63.213.182 21:34, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

SVG file sizes

I just used Inkscape to redraw this 981 byte PNG as this 34,483 byte SVG. What did I do wrong? Or is a 35-fold expansion in file size typical? --Damian Yerrick (☎) 15:52, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Upgrade wiki to librsvg 2.14 please

Please please admins, librsvg 2.11 or what you're using (the library that converts SVG on the fly to bitmaps) is quite buggy. You can see that with the first version of Image:Lactuca_compounds.svg. Compare with the SVG in your browser. That bug is well known and fixed in 2.14. I tried to work around it but even the last version doesn't get correctly converted.

I have reverted the svg now to that version so you can see it at once.--Ayacop 09:53, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

Hi Ayacop please got to http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org and point out the issue there. No developer will read about the problem here. Arnomane 10:26, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. It turned out they already have installed the newest version, and that I found a new librsvg bug.--Ayacop 09:39, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

Note: I have fixed the picture by re-drawing it, so if you want to see the bug in question, you have to use an historical version. --Slashme 10:44, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Sometimes my SVG files don't "show"

I recently uploaded Image:Greek Colonies of N Black Sea.svg. However, this SVG image does not "show" on either of my computers. I just get the little red corner X. Does everyone else get this? After diddling for a bit, I decided to upload the image as an PNG (Image:Ancient Greek Colonies of N Black Sea.png). I use Inkscape and don't usually have this problem. Any insight out there?? MapMaster 18:12, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

No problem with: [[1]]. Shows in moz-firefox 2.0 (ger) on my XP-SE-Computer. Will try this on Suse 10.2 also, if no further notice appears, this will have worked fine too. --KleinKlio 20:46, 14 December 2006 (UTC) PS: Your png-version is loaded a little bit faster and dynamically (slowly from top to bottom), while your svg-version flashes in after a while of "sleeping mouse-cursor" - perhaps you should wait (depending on the high-endness of your terminal in download-speed, ram, videocard-ram, bus-speed ...) considerably longer? --KleinKlio 20:56, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Fails for me (iceweasel 2.0) - the problem is that the generated .png image which should be [2] returns (in text/html) "File not found: Although this PHP script (/w/thumb.php) exists, the file requested for output (/mnt/upload3/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/27/Greek_Colonies_of_N_Black_Sea.svg/800px-Greek_Colonies_of_N_Black_Sea.svg.png) does not." The link KleinKlio posted is OK for me, but that's the source svg file. Is this some kind of MediaWiki bug? --H2g2bob 09:08, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Yes, H2g2bob is right. In firefox and opera in XP and Suse, always only the original does show. Encountered the same problem with my SVG Image:Galois_Corr_CubeRoot2.svg. It is invisible to me in my article de:Galoisgruppe, too. Perhaps we should consider reconverting to PNG or thumbnail all our SVGs with bitmaps? (Always seemed no good to me, that thumbnailing should be the servers business).--KleinKlio 23:18, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm getting the same problem on Image:Diamond road sign dangerous bends.svg (but not on Image:Diamond road sign dangerous bend.svg or Image:Diamond road sign dangerous corners.svg). Still no ideas? Stannered 23:01, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Aha, that was caused by an embedded image. By the time I worked it out, someone had already fixed it for me - cheers IIVQ! Stannered 17:50, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Chinese text in SVG

I just translate Image:Baseball diamond.svg into the Chinese version Image:Baseball diamond zh-t.svg using Inkscape, but the Chinese text didn't show. How do I fix this problem? Thanks.--Will74205 06:59, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Did you try converting the Chinese text to outlines? I would imagine that Han fonts are not installed on the commons server. --Damian Yerrick (☎) 04:50, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

I think this is a bug with CJK fonts, see bugzilla:8666. pfctdayelise (说什么?) 14:19, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

Scripted SVGs

I introduced a Template for scripted SVG (that is SVG containing JavaScript). At the discussion page there I talk about the reasons, why I did this. Now to the interesting point: A small question from pfctdayelise:

Are scripted SVGs safe?

I wanted to answer in a short and indifferent way, but the point is very striking: SVG images allow at the moment arbitrary JavaScript code to be executed from Wikimedia servers (as soon as anyone opens the SVG file directly). This could be a security issue. Does anyone know, if there is a discussion about this somewhere in the Wikimedia community? --Manuel (Diskussion) 13:11, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

PS: I'm a convinced supporter of Scripted SVG. I would really miss the possibilities that this mechanism offers, even if it isn't rendered at the moment, but security is security. --M.S.

Ah, I thought we wouldn't let you upload SVG's with JS. If we do.. this is a bug. It would be a huge XSS vulnerability. I think that way to achieve what you want is to write a single general purpose JS animation script which reads it's animation from a safe configuration 'script' which can do no harm. We then could permit that, and only that javascript.. then people can use it for many different sorts of animation. Hmmm. It appears we do permit them. --Gmaxwell 14:16, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Spoke to Brion some, we probably couldn't have uploaded these files today. (JS filter is at upload, and it didn't used to be as good as it is not). --Gmaxwell 14:23, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Whitespace in SVGs

In the creation of SVG images, how should I deal with whitespace (or, more frequently, empty transparent space) around the edges of images (for example, this one)? Is it preferable to crop them as close as possible (a lá this one), or do I have the option of leaving a small empty border around them for aesthetics? Thanks! MithrandirMage 02:09, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

IMO, I'd crop it. Hope this helps. --Imdanumber1 14:45, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

Strang looking SVG

hi, could anyone please tell me how my svg looks not the way I created it? Image:Pixel aspect ratio pixelseitenverhaeltnis ntsc480p pal576p hdtv720p hdtv1080p uhdv4320p by hdtvtotal com.svg , greets, --Andreas -horn- Hornig 21:34, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Help on tracing PNGs to SVGs with Inkscape

I need to know if anyone has any instructions on how to trace a PNG file to an SVG. I've tried to do it myself, but I'm new with Inkscape and I'm not sure on what the heck I'm doing. Help will be appreciated from an experienced Inkscape user or someone that does know how to do this. Thanks. --Imdanumber1 14:50, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

That depends... If the image is high enough quality and resolution, and uses a suitably small number of colours and no gradients, then you could try using Inkscape's Auto-Tracer (Path > Convert Bitmap to Path). Some work will still be required with the node editor (F2) to get things just right. Otherwise, you're relegated to doing it manually. Then it's just the same as if you were creating any image from scratch, except that you want it to look as identical to the original as possible (unless the image is butt-ugly or inaccurate, in which case you want to do what the original did but better). I normally do this by importing the bitmap into Inkscape (which, by the way, you have to do anyway to do an auto-trace), then resizing the page to fit (Ctrl+Shift+D, Alt+F, Alt+F4 under Windows; should be the same under *nix), and drawing a new image above the old. If the image is particularly complicated, then I'll put the original on a different layer and lock it, so that I don't keep hitting the image by accident; on most images, I don't bother. Basically, you'll need to learn to use Inkscape first (although I taught myself as I went, I already had experience with other vector graphics applications). Stannered 16:25, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

Here's the image: [3]. I want to convert similar ones like it, although I'll need this image in red, a.k.a. hex code #FF0000. --Imdanumber1 17:10, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

404'd. Stannered 22:49, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

How about now? [4] If you could, you can post the step-by-step instructions on my talk. Don't forget to let me know how to add color. --Imdanumber1 22:56, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

The best way for text is to find the original font and create text in that font. Adding color is EASY (seriously, have you even opened Inkscape?). But seriously, I can't post step-by-step instructions on learning an entire application from scratch. See if you can find a book/website guide to vector graphics, and work through that. Stannered 23:17, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

Fonts

How can i install one of the fonts that the mediawiki software recognises (i am looking at a serif font) all of them seem to cost money, why doesn't the software accept regular fonts that everyone will have. Century schoolbook L i can only find to buy. Chris_huh^talk 13:20, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Bitstream Vera fonts come with loads of OSS tools. OpenOffice and Inkscape spring to mind; I can't remember where I got them from. DejaVu fonts are available here: http://dejavu.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Download. I'm having trouble finding Bitstream Charter, although the derivative font Charis SIL can be found here: http://scripts.sil.org/cms/scripts/page.php?site_id=nrsi&item_id=CharisSILfont. As mentioned at the bottom, all fonts come with various OSS distributions (mainly Fedora Core 3, by the looks of things). The fonts that "most people" have are the fonts that come by default with Windows, which are not open-source, which is why I presume they can't be installed on the servers. However, Arial and Times New Roman are both substituted with fonts very similar in appearance and metrics. Stannered 15:25, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

What about compressed SVGs?

Does MediaWiki support compressed SVGs (aka .svgz)? This could save a lot server space I think. --Afrank99 07:18, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

Wrong informations about SVG

It is not a pixel-based image file format and thus is scalable to any size without quality loss.

Sorry, but this not correct. SVG can be a vector image, and it should be a vector image, but I am afraid, many SVGs in Wikipedia are only converted raster images and still pixel-based. Please look at Human.png and Human.svg - the SVG version is even bigger than the PNG.

People should not be encouraged to convert PNG into SVG. SVG images are only useful if they are created from the scratch as vector images. --Plenz 15:48, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

a) Image:Human.svg is most definitely a vector image and not a pixel-based image, although the conversion appears automated and clumsy. The larger filesize is not due to an embedded bitmap, but due to a high number of nodes.

b) Although automated conversions are more often than not not of much value, "convert" can also be used to describe recreating the image in SVG form. (I use it in that way.) Stannered 20:11, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

I do not know how to draw, so I typically trace pngs to create svgs. Remember that SVGs also have the advantage of being editable (move items, re-label, re-color etc.) without data loss (unlike bitmaps). While it is true that images which are automatically vectorized are typically a bit clumsy, it is no reason to stop encouraging people to convert pngs to svg. Remember, just a few tweaks in inkscape can give pretty good results. Maybe we should do more to encourage people to do this tweaking before uploading, if they can. --Inkwina (talk • contribs) 20:29, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

SVG -> PNG and transparency in IE6

IE6 is a bad browser, but it is widely used. Right now the PNG conversion shows up with white backgrounds in IE6, not looking very good against other colours. --Bep (talk) 01:58, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

Indeed, "MSIE 6.0" accounts for 23.9% of pageviews to English Wikipedia.

Though I thought some wikis were using some JS transparency hack to address this now. --Gmaxwell (talk) 02:21, 21 June 2008 (UTC)