Collaborative web whiteboard based on the SVG technology

As innovation on web standards proceeds, web browsers have the option of becoming the generic user interface for any computer application, even those involving extensive user interaction.

This thesis is placed in the domain of web graphics, where we tried a standard based approach, relying on the SVG standard for web vector graphics. SVG is less supported than its propertary counterpart, Adobe Flash, but we use a recent "shim" library to bring SVG support to all browsers capable of running Flash content; this way, the advantages of the two technologies can be combined. The library,called ``SVG Web'', is unobtrusive with reference to the application code, simply requiring a certain "style" for javascript handling of SVG elements and sometimes simplifying the handling of the SVG tree and improving its portability also among native renderers.

To investigate the our approach, we have developed a shared, web-based whiteboard which allows different users to interact across the network using standard web browsers and servers. The whiteboard is thought for quick sketches, and built with the requirement of being lightweight and portable both for the client and the server side.

The resulting application is capable of providing a good level of user interaction, still remaining fairly simple and maintainable in its code. The important achieved outcome is the possibility of developing all client side logic with the same language (Javascript), with a strong integration between the graphic environment and the rest of client-side functions, including AJAX communications.