What libsvgtoswf is not: a user-friendly front end
libsvgtoswf is, as indicated by its name, a library. You will not find a command-line front end that converts SVG into SWF here. Instead, such a tool (inspiringly named svgtoswf) will be distributed separately.
How to convert your SVG files?
This distribution does provide a test program, located in the "test" directory. You can use the test program to convert your SVG files into SWF, as follows:
- cd /some/place/nice/libsvgtoswf
- ./configure
- make
- cd test
- ./svgtoswf
The test program reads all .svg files from the "svg" directory and writes corresponding .swf files to the "swf" directory.
Limitations
The following is a list of limitations that are actually caused by limitations of the Flash format:
- Line cap: in Flash the line cap is not configurable, the one and only choice is "round cap". In SVG the line cap is configurable, and the default is "butt cap".
- Gradient spread: in SVG you can configure the gradient spread method (pad/reflect/repeat). Flash only offers the pad method, hence all gradients are padded. I have tried emulating repeat/reflect gradients by creating a gradient that repeats the stop colors a number of times, but I quickly ran into the limitation of Flash that you can only have 8 stop colors per gradient.
- Flash does not support the focus parameters (fx/fy) for radial gradients.
- Gradient stops: Flash only offers 8 gradient stop colors, SVG allows any number.
Contact
Direct your suggestions, contributions and flames to:
Raymond Penners <raymond@dotsphinx.com>