Open Source Options for Graphic Design?

[Henry Hartley]

>> On Mon, Jan 09, 2006 10:59 AM Dave M G said:
>> 
>> 	This being a pro-open source group, can anyone help me come
>> to grips with what my options are with open source choices for
>> delivering animated content? I'm a little overwhelmed by the
>> information I'm getting on the web.

I had a similar problem.  In my day job we have a client with some Flash
on the main page of their web site.  It's not a lot and modifying it
shouldn't have been a big deal.  Although I was able to get the fla file
from the previous contractor my task was made more difficult by the fact
that they could not (or would not) provide a layered version of the
underlying graphic.  I ended up having to go back to the drawing board
and create a new USA base map with certain cities labeled.  Fortunately
I had just made a vector map of the USA for my daughter to use in
learning the states, capitals and principal cities.

I wanted to do all this without having to buy a copy of Flash for such a
small task.  In the end, however, I did buy a copy.  Actually, I have
the advantage for working at a company that bought it for me.  Seems
like a lot of money for one little graphic but I'll probably get more
use out of it now that I have it.  Like you, I found that the open
source solutions were more trouble than they were worth, at least for my
skill set.  

One thing to keep your eye on is SVG (http://www.w3.org/Graphics/SVG/).
I'm sorry to say it isn't supported out-of-the-box by an unnamed but
well known browser that many people seem to use.  Adobe has an SVG
Viewer (http://www.adobe.com/svg/) but unlike Flash I don't believe it
is installed by default.  Firefox now supports SVG without having to
download SVG enabled builds, which is nice.  Creating drawings in SVG
can be done in many ways but I like Inkscape (http://www.inkscape.org/).
I've also created SVG dynamically with PHP.

-- 
Henry