Real Networks have released SMILGen, an open source Python SMIL editor, added support for SMIL 2.0 in their latest player, and Jasc Software have updated WebDraw to support the SVG Recommendation.

Real's new "RealOne Platform" contains support for SMIL 2.0, the capabilities of which are detailed on Real's web site. Real have also released an open source editor for SMIL files, SMILGen, which runs on any platform with Python and TKinter support. SMILGen "understands the languages it authors, it knows what attributes a specific element uses or what child elements a given element may contain."

Jasc Software have announced preview release 5 of WebDraw, their native SVG authoring program. The major news in this release is its conformance to the SVG 1.0 W3C Recommendation. Other new features include:

Added the Animation Timeline palette for creating and editing basic animation statements on SVG objects

• Added a Preview tab to the main document window to view the current file in a Web browser environment without leaving WebDraw
• Added an Image tool for adding external bitmap and SVG images to a file
• Added support for different unit types on attribute and property values
• Enhanced the Text tool with on-screen entry of new elements
• More accurate rendering of and elements
• Support for creating quadratic Bezier and elliptical arc path segments with the Path tool

WebDraw is commercial software. A forum for discussion of current features and requests for future versions is available on the Jasc web site.