HowTo: Enable Adobe's SVG-Plugin in Opera

Abstract

The Adobe SVG Viewer Plugin is the current standard SVG Viewer for Browsers with no built-in SVG support.

The problem is that Adobe officially supports Internet Explorer and Netscape only and leaves other browsers, like Opera, out.
If you've installed Netscape, you just can copy some needed files from the Netscape plugIn directory to the Opera plugin directory and it works.
But since many users don't have this Browser installed, you've got problems getting the files from the setup.

This HowTo describes how to get the files from the installer with no additional tools or programs than the windows in-built explorer.

If you've got a windows without file permissions settings, e.g. your harddisk formatted with FAT or FAT32, this procedure will not work. NTFS (or any other file system with file rights) is required.

This HowTo applies to Adobe SVG Viewer installer version 3.01.

SVG means “Scalable Vector Graphics” and is an XML-based solution for 2-dimensional vector graphics. It's ideal for charts on web pages and as a free, well-documented replacement technology for Macromedia Flash.
Because it is XML-based, everyone can write it with a simple text editor. Even the server-sided generation of SVG is an ease (e.g. with PHP), so that charts can be generated live from a database.

Note: I found a page describing that the needed „NPSVG3.dll“ and „NPSVG3.zip“ can be found at “C:\Programs\Common files\Adobe\SVG Viewer 3.0\Plugins”.
If you've got these it's fine for you and you can just get to step 4.
I didn't have these files there _before_ using it once, so the HowTo is not useless as some might think.

Step 1: Getting the installer

The Adobe SVG Zone is located at http://www.adobe.com/svg/main.html. Find the link on this page or download it directly:

Save it somewhere you'll find it again.

Step 2: Installation preparation

The installer unpacks its files into a temporary directory and uses them from there. The installation lasts some seconds only, so it's nearly impossible to hand-copy the required files from the folder.

The idea: If you take away the file and directory deletion rights from the temporary folder, the installer can't remove the unpacked files when exiting – so you have all time to copy the files by hand.

The temporary folder is located at (Windows XP):

Open the windows explorer and navigate to there. Now right-click the folder name and use „Settings“ („Einstellungen“), then the tab „Security“. Add yourself as a user and click „extendet“ (?) („Erweitert“).

In the following list, select your user name and edit the rights. Disable „Delete“ and „Subfolder and file deletion“ (?).
Press ok, apply the settings for all subfolders and files. Press ok.

Now nobody can delete files and folders from the temporary directory.

Step 3: Installing the viewer

Just install the downloaded SVG Viewer.

You will notice a new directory in the temporary folder. This is the one where the svg viewer files reside now.

Step 4: Copying the plugIn files

Copy the files „NPSVG3.dll“ and „NPSVG3.zip“ from the temporary installation directory to your Opera plugIn directory, often „C:\Programs\Opera\plugins\“.

Step 5: Cleaning up

You need to give the file deletion right to the temp directory again. If you don't do this, the temp directory can't be cleaned up any more and you disk will be full some time in the near future.

Restart Opera to let it recognize the new plugIn.

Step 6: Verifying the installation

Notes

You can find the additional files as well as a ReadMe at

C:\windows\system32\Adobe\SVG Viewer 3.0

Links

Here some nice example graphics and pages I found useful, the pages mostly because of the examples.

http://www.kevlindev.com/
http://www.dotuscomus.com/svg/SCD.svg
http://jeffsouthard.com/demos/grove/xml/cache/kaleidoscope.svg
http://www.xml.com/2002/01/23/svg/cubes_final.svgz
http://www.kevlindev.com/alife/ants/index.htm
http://www.carto.net/papers/svg/samples/

The SVG 1.1 specification can be found at http://www.w3.org/TR/SVG11/.

Other approaches

Instead of changing the file rights you could copy the whole temporary folder just in the seconds the setup is installing. This is more easy but with faster computers very hard, because the setup is very fast itself.
It would help to open a dos box and have the copy command already typed int, so that you only have to press return.





I hope this HowTo has helped you a bit. Keep cool and start using SVG ;)



HowTo created by: Christian Weiske <cweiske at cweiske dot de>

Last update: 2004-02-05 08:17