Could LibreOffice have a tab on its draw program that previews .svg images in firefox (if installed)?

[roy]

as the heading says:

is this is good idea? could libreoffice have a tab on its draw program that previews .svg images in firefox (if installed)

I think it might be a good idea, because svg files can include js that build part of the image when it is loaded, so it might be nice to preview how the modifications effect the svg file w/o needing to switch programs at each edit.

comments welcome.

(another idea might be if something like draw or inkscape, be implemented as a third tab to a program like aptana so it has: manual source editing, draw visually, and preview - that would be a plus for aptana.)

[oweng]

is this is good idea?

From a User Experience (UX) perspective a preview is usually a good idea. From a code perspective the issue is more complex as LO has its own internal SVG rendering engine i.e., it does not use the Firefox, Inkscape, Aptana, etc., engines. Any such rendering engine would need to be added in, which may not be a small task. In some instances the licenses (e.g., Inkscape, Aptana) may be in conflict, although in the case of Firefox this is not an issue as LO now dual-licenses under the MPL.

Overall though, a more significant issue is that the Open Document Format (ODF) v1.2 specification does not support all SVG definitions and is even in conflict with some of them. There is a decent thread here which includes some good SVG test files. The thread gets interesting from about post #15 onwards and in it I have tried to detail some of the SVG / ODF specification issues, as well as indicate some related bugs and developer commentary. Progress is being made in improving SVG support in LO, but there remains some way to go yet, and some aspects are dependent upon amending the ODF specification.

[roy]

thanks for the info.