xmlhack: Adobe ships SVG Viewer 2.0, promises wide distribution

Adobe announced the release of Adobe SVG Viewer 2.0 and announced plans for wider distribution with Adobe software, including Acrobat and Acrobat Reader.

The new viewer supports the Candidate Recommendation of SVG, though some backwards compatibility with the older version remains. The new viewer also includes "additional Accessibility features such as mouseless panning (via the numlock key), improved support for the SVG spec, improved performance and rendering." Release notes provide additional detail about changes.

Adobe plans to substantially improve distribution of this viewer by including it with other Adobe products, including the free Acrobat Reader:

"Adobe SVG Viewer will soon ship with RealNetworks' Real Player. In addition, Adobe SVG Viewer will ship with each copy of Adobe® Acrobat and Acrobat Reader. This will enable the distribution of approximately 45 million viewers before the end of this year, and an estimated 110 million in twelve months. Additional distribution is included in Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe GoLive and other Adobe products."

The SVG Viewer is available in both English and Japanese for Macintosh and Windows computers. Netscape 4 browsers and Internet Explorer 4 and later browsers are supported by the plug-in, but Netscape 6 is not supported.