OpenWetWare:Software/Image Editor

Current wiki limitations with regards to images

• Images are handled as a bunch of pixels in mediaWiki (through standard such as PNG, JPEG, GIF ...).
• No easy way to update/edit an image from the wiki. Static piece of information if you don't have a suitable editor to modify the image.
• No way to have a look at differences between versions of a given image.

A new way to handle images/drawings

• Use a text-based drawing language to benefit from the wiki history mechanism.
• provide within the wiki a way to view/edit the image/drawing.

Proposed architecture

• Drawing description would be SVG based and stored on a standard wiki page.
• PNG, JPEG, GIF images can be handled within SVG.
• Java Applet embedded into the wiki page where the image has to be shown.
• The applet can switch back and forth between two modes (Viewing/Editing). Once edited, the new SVG file can be saved on its Wiki page.

Benefits

• Can be used to replace powerpoint-like graph.
• allow collaborative annotations over real experimental data (gels, culture plates, random pictures).

Related projects

• Batik: SVG library
• iNote (not SVG compliant)
• glipsgraffiti: SVG editor
• Sketsa

Comments

• this xml-type/applet-based architecture could be easily extended to other features (graph, gene annotations, ...)