Get to grips with RaphaelJS - a powerful cross-browser compatible vector graphics library, to create interactive 2D graphics and animations with ease

Overview

Learn something new in an Instant! A short, fast, focused guide delivering immediate results.
Create cross-browser imageless drawings and animations, with DOM access.
Create your own shape, almost any shape, with simple and illustrated techniques.
Write once and run in almost any browsers including IE6

In Detail

Drawing in a browser without images has been around for a long time but it was a complex task with browser support issues. Raphael JS aims to solve all these problems with simple and clear methods to draw cross-browser compatible drawings. Imagine drawing complex dials, graphs, and meters for a dashboard, all without images, and the ability to dynamically manipulate those drawings. Creativity is the only limit with Raphael JS.

"Instant RaphaelJS Starter" is a practical, hands-on guide that provides you with a number of clear step-by-step exercises, which will help you take advantage of the real power that is behind Raphael JS, and give you a good grounding in using it in your web pages.

"Instant RaphaelJS Starter" looks at the HTML5 video formats available, and breaks down the mystery and confusion that surrounds which format to use. It will take you through a number of clear, practical recipes that will help you to take advantage of the new HTML5 video standard, quickly and painlessly.

You will also learn how to draw your own shapes using any vector graphics editor, or by using one of the pre-defined shapes. We will also take a look at adding functionality such as DOM events, or animations, as well as how to manipulate the shapes dynamically. If you want to take advantage of imageless vector graphics for browsers using Raphael JS, then this is the book for you.

You will learn everything you need to know to convert shapes and perform animations, as well as how to draw custom shapes with simple techniques using Raphael JS and use them across multiple browsers.

What you will learn from this book

Create simple geometric shapes.
Animate the shapes dynamically into anything.
Create almost any possible shape with a simple technique.
Add DOM events to any shape created.
Use Raphael JS in a practical environment.
Scale the drawing to any size without losing quality.
Create interactive shapes and drawings.

Approach

Get to grips with a new technology, understand what it is and what it can do for you, and then get to work with the most important features and tasks. Starter Guide.

Who this book is written for

This book is great for developers new to Vector graphics in browsers (SVG and VML), and who are looking to get a good grounding in how to use Raphael JS to create imageless and fast loading interactive drawings and shapes, in a web browser. It's assumed that you will have some experience in HTML JavaScript or jQuery already.