IssueTracker

I can not replicate this issue. I am using G1 Running RC30. I have gone to
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Bitmap_VS_SVG.svg and other web pages that have embedded svg graphics and
I have found that the browser displays them fine.

What do you get for http://highlandsun.com/hyc/Kazakh/d3/ ? There are 3 SVGs in the
first 2-3 pages, none of them show up on the phone but they all work fine in a
regular browser. Opera on the G1 works too (but Opera doesn't render embedded fonts,
which this page also uses).

We have chosen intentionally to not support SVG in the browser to save space; full SVG adds over 1M to the
webkit image size.

As is described here:
http://googlecode.blogspot.com/2009/10/svg-at-google-and-in-internet-explorer.html

SVG is a really useful technology to have in a mobile browser.  And it is supported
by other mobile devices.

Perhaps the webkit build can be setup so SVG can be added as a downloadable app to
the built in browser.

I would like to use the Google Visualization API on an app that I am building. Is there
some way to do this other than to have the browser support the functionality?  

dacarys: I'm not aware of an interactive alternative to SVG.

We're considering enabling SVG for WebView in a future release, on devices with the memory to support it.

Please enable it by default. Yes, it's easy to enable it by "make ENABLE_SVG=true" and modifying
external/webkit/WebCore/config.h and maybe "external/webkit/WebCore/loader/FrameLoaderClient.h".
However, if it's not enabled by default, I think few devices will support it. And as discussed above, there is no
interactive alternative to SVG.

I hate to add a 'me too' comment, but lack of SVG in the Android browser seems like a big missing feature.  

SVG is part of the HTML5 group of technologies, and as such has wide support across a variety of devices and platforms, including things like the Google Chrome browser, and the iPhone Safari browser.  As linked above Google themselves promotes SVG graphics as excellent technology, being open, cross-platform, easily programmable, and accessible, too, so screen-readers can use them.

Finally, my Google Nexus One has 512 MiB of RAM, and a 1 GHz processor.  Having Android tell me it would be too much work for my hardware to render SVG is hard to accept. It's hard to understand a position which says Android shouldn't be a next-generation web-browser platform.

jonathan.stewart: you may be interested in comment #4 here: http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=8202#c4

Can we get consistent status between these two bugs?  Is SVG enabled in the Gingerbread browser now?  Can this bug be closed?

[Comment deleted]

SVG has been enabled in a future release, but not necessarily a release called Gingerbread. Sorry for the confusion.

I'd also like this enabled - the possibilities for producing progressive browser-based content are limited without support for SVG.

Hi,
can you tell which Android release SVG will be supported on and when? SVG coupled with Touch events are great for indoor maps web applications, ... which so far work only on iPhone. In the meantime, I show my customers iPhone and Android HTC Dream side-by-side with crystal clear and interactive SVG on iPhone... and poorly rendered bitmaps on Android. What a pity.

Julien

Jmartin: sorry, this forum is for reporting bugs and requesting features. I cannot comment on Android's internal engineering schedules.

Although it's said that SVG will be enabled by default in next Android release (GingerBread?), we need to test SVG a bit on Android before we have GingerBread. So we tried to enable it. It turned out pretty easily. Tweaked several lines and "make ENABLE_SVG=true ENABLE_SVG_ANIMATION=true", then you got it. Since SVG will be enabled by default, and it's pretty simple,  we won't bother submit the patch. The attached file is patch against AOSP master

Would it be possible to include a replacement version of the browser with SVG support in the marketplace?

It's possible, but it may not be what you thought/wanted. The Android browser consists of three main parts: the Brwoser.apk, Java WebKit binding and related in the android.webkit package,  and the underlying C++ WebKit code. The rendering of SVG is the job of the C++ part. And, unfortunately, I don't think it's possible, or say, legal, to make a package to in the marketplace that can replace those C++ WebKit libs under /system/lib. That is, though what we want to have is a slightly tweaked SVG-enabled Android browser, the resulting package might need to have the 3 parts I mentioned.  

BTW, after I enabled SVG,  the Acid3 results changed from 93/100 to 96/100. However, three of the four remaining failed tests are SVG related.  See the attached file, or check http://www.tandroid.org/enable-android-webkit-svg

It turned that if all SVG code is enabled properly, the browser will pass all SVG tests. The remaining failed one is CSS media related.

https://review.source.android.com/#change,17258

SVG is becoming more and more important for web developers, as it is a popular standard now (Only MS Internet Explorer does not support it yet, but in IE9).

People are relying on it, developers as well as web page visitors, as it is much more performant than the HTML5 Canvas, regarding animation. (See http://www.lutanho.net/svgvml3d/index.html for examples of efficient 3D animations).

@koansin.tan
I am new on this forum and also just started android development. I donot know where to find Config.h (external/webkit/WebCore/config.h ) to Enable SVG. Can you pleae explain it Step wise. I am using Samsung galaxy i9000. will be gr8 if you can help.

iphone browser and mozilla fennec have svg rendering. so android needs it too

Interesting that webkit has support compiled out, yet Android device makers bundle in the Adobe SVG Viewer.  How heavy is that?

Please reconsider.  SVG is a longtime friend of open standard rendering that gives us features unavailable in Canvas.

[Comment deleted]

Hi, Can any one please tell me how to edit "external/webkit/WebCore/config.h and maybe "external/webkit/WebCore/loader/FrameLoaderClient.h" Where i can find these two *.h files ?

@atif.musaddaq

Modifying config.h is not necessary. Please read https://review.source.android.com/#change,17258
However, you need to recompile your WebKit (libwebcore.so). If you don't know to do that, you can
start from http://source.android.com/source/download.html

SVG is about providing Vector Graphics integrated with the DOM. Although faster at rendering 2D graphics, Canvas does not allow to setup DOM events, making it much slower than SVG to render interactive dynamic graphics especially on slower mobile device processors.

Zooming graphics with canvas also renders poorly because the actual result is raster graphics which loose the vector "intelligence" as soon as rendered.

For vector graphics on the Web there are 3 options: Flash, VML and SVG. The only really open standard is SVG. VML is being demoted as SVG will start to replace it gradually starting with IE9. Flash does not integrate with the DOM and will therefore never be a real alternative even it was an open standard.

More and more web application rely on SVG to render graphs and other computer-generated graphics. Popular JavaScript libraries such as Raphael.js and Dojo GFX support SVG and VML and will not support Canvas for the above reasons. jQuery also has an SVG (no VML here) plugin.

The lack of support for SVG on Android is therefore a severe restriction when it comes to modern dynamic user interface design especially when it has been supported on iPhone for years.

For the ones needing SVG support on their androids, Firefox Mobile 4.0b2 (beta) for Android supports SVG.

Dear Android team, will you give use SVG support for this christmas? In gingerbread?

Please enable SVG support. It is frustrating that I can use SVG for my iphone mobile applications, but they break for android. Seems strange to me and makes my life a little bit more difficult! :)

[Comment deleted]

Please add support for SVG!

[Comment deleted]

At least provide another version of the browser in the Marketplace, with SVG enabled.  Surely this should be possible now?

Firefox on Android supports SVG, and is available in the Marketplace.

apparently travesty corrected in honeycomb. http://twitpic.com/3vdro4 ye be saved, web loving mortals.

via http://twitter.com/#!/ariyahidayat/status/32327100480360448

I feel mutilated without SVG on Android browser...
 

> I feel mutilated without SVG on Android browser...

it's ok; we're sympathetic.  if this incident has left you with a feeling of shock, know that there are others suffering, and you should seek your local WebApp support group for help and consolation.  

the good news is help & sanity appear to be riding to the rescue; OHA appears to have flipped the ENABLE_SVG bit for honeycomb, & presumably 2.4 will be web compliant as well.

Given the number of comments on this ticket, and more 200 people starred it, it's really disturbing. How the hell you want to manage some developer community if you fail to explain your reasoning for not 'flipping a switch' sooner. Android is open as long as you wish to make a fork. Thank you very much for your openness

> How the hell you want to manage some developer community if you fail to explain your reasoning for not 'flipping a switch' sooner.

please read the thread. they've explained their reason in comment #4, August 2009 [1]:
> We have chosen intentionally to not support SVG in the browser to save space; full
> SVG adds over 1M to the webkit image size.

followed up in comment #7, April 28 2010 [2]:
> We're considering enabling SVG for WebView in a future release, on devices with the memory to support it.

[1] http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=1376#c4
[2] http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=1376#c4

Android is indeed open to a fork, and compiling an Android image with the ENABLE_SVG flag-bit flipped is easy as cake.  That, however, does application developers no good as their target audience is likely to have a manufacturer's build, which will likely follow OHA/Google's lead.

WebView is indeed used many many places in Android.  How about introducing a SvgEnabledWebView application developers can opt in to use?  That way there's no additional memory pressure from unused SVG code in existing cases, and those wishing to build Web Applications have a path forwards?

You're reading it backwards. It should be vendor's choice to opt-in/out of this feature. But given that the default is 'no you can't have it', how many vendors do you think will enable it? Do you seriously think that Samsung or HTC will opt-in because the memory on their devices is big enough, and then advertise as a feature? Don't think so. I'm familiar with the whole thread, and I don't consider 1MB of storage space as a valid reason (it's 2011). This was mentioned many times by others, but without any response from the team.

As of SvgEnabledWebView, that sounds good to me, although in some other form, we don't want to end up with CanvasEnabledWebView, WebWorkersEnabledWebView etc. Don't try to convince that the team is responsive, it's not.

They can enable it and they would enable it if there was user demand for this feature. They did much crazier things with their ROMs. The trouble is there's little user demand for SVG capability in mobile browser. This silly decision is currently limiting web developers and holding mobile web back. Ironical since Google claimed to have entered the mobile market to liberate the mobile web.

My main reason for wanting SVG in android is because it would make building dpi independent web applications much easier.

For web applications you have one option which is to advise users install Firefox to use websites that employ SVG.

Has anyone tried svgweb on android w/ Flash support?
http://code.google.com/p/svgweb/

It's interesting that Google is contributing to a project like svgweb while at the same time limiting svg by not enabling it in android (until honeycomb).

Can anybody tell how to unsubscribe from this thread? :-)

Comment #47 on issue 36906121 by dougches...@gmail.com: Browser doesn't render
SVG images


http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=1376
Has anyone tried svgweb on android w/ Flash support?
http://code.google.com/p/svgweb/

It's interesting that Google is contributing to a project like svgweb while
at the same time limiting svg by not enabling it in android (until
honeycomb).

Just un-star it.  That's what I'm doing right now also.

Dear all,
to install another browser is not the option when you want ease of usage (it's years I advise to install another browser to IE6 visitors of my websites... only now in 2011 this goal could be considered to be achieved)...

I consider SVG as one of the key technologies of the next years, SVG is enabled by support on desktop browsers, including the upcoming IE9 which has a good support of it, and on mobile world is well supported by iOS (including SVG animations, which in the future could improve performances over JavaScript based ones if supported by a native implementation).

And from a more personal point of view, this missing feature block portability of my iOS applications to android platform. I don't have (yet) a real android phone, up to now I was working on iPhone confident that under the hood there is still a webkit browser and it would have been easy to make it compatible. I've discovered now this missing feature "Programming the Mobile Web", a wonderful book by Maximiliano Firtman which I suggest to anyone, and I've verified it on a friend of mine Nexus One Phone... I'm installing the Android Emulators to find out even if the last Android versions still don't include SVG...

Regarding comment 45, this is the place I've chosen to express my "demand for this feature", if there is a better place, please indicate it to me. ;-)

I agree that 1MB cannot be a good reason to keep SVG out any longer. Device manufacturers with too little memory still would have the option to disable SVG or other features, but the default should definitely be SVG in.

Requiring Firefox is a major user issue, and it takes a lot more than 1MB or RAM. I don't wont to oblige my users to choose a different browser than their choice or the default browser on their device.

SVG is soon going to be available everywhere except on Android. The wide adoption of SVG has been held hostage of IE for about 10 years, but now with libraries such as Raphaël and Chrome Frame, browser vector graphics are available everywhere, except again on Android.

There is no alternative to vector graphics in the browser other than SVG, especially for applications that require efficient handling of DOM events.

As an application developer this is a major nightmare.

SVG is therefore a major technology with no alternative that cannot be considered optional.

Please fix this ASAP by enabling SVG by default.

some conjecture: the difference is not 1MB of storage space.  the difference, i believe, is the memory footprint.  every X MB of program data in the WebView library adds X ms to the time it takes to load the browser into memory.

how bad does that problem become?  does every program using a WebView become slower to load/unload?  that'd be a real problem given Androids multi-tasking model, which can opt to kill programs for their memory and use onSaveInstanceState()/onRestoreInstanceState() to unload/reload the application when it's needed again.  if this isn't a concern, i'd love to know where the WebView program data resides and/or how it is shared.

BlackBerry's RIM OS 6 browser (formerly Iris) renders SVG as good as on iOS. Android is now clearly behind. This is really a pain for my web applications. Of course, for obvious usability reasons, I cannot tell the user : "recompile or use Firefox"

The Honeycomb emulator, even if it crashes, seems to be supporting SVG.

the first screenshot is from this example: http://www.croczilla.com/bits_and_pieces/svg/samples/circles1/circles1.svg 
it is displayed, but the emulator goes very slow.

the second example: http://www.croczilla.com/bits_and_pieces/svg/samples/opacity1/opacity1.xml is also displayed, but the browser stops responding after clicking the start button.

Notes that both works very well on iOS (the screenshot are from the iOS simulator, but I've tested them to work succesfully on my iPhone 3G - not the 3GS!)

Also, Samsung Wave's browser (Dolfin I think) renders SVG well. I just tried http://www.croczilla.com/bits_and_pieces/svg/samples/opacity1/opacity1.xml on a Samsung Wave S8500. It is perfectly displayed and the animation is pretty smooth.

Just have to agree with all of you who believe in freedom of choice. If there is a switch to enable/disable, let manufacturers or phone users themselves decide whether the performance/user experience ratio with SVG enabled is worthwhile. Don't decide for them by not enabling it at all.

If Honeycomb includes it then all is well (in 6 months). Up until then, I'll just have to convince my customers to download Firefox 4 to enable my SVG features.

Honeycomb will be nice but as it stands it doesn't run on *any* handsets -- this needs to be in a 2.x patch that actually goes out to all existing handsets.

Hopefully, Google would enable SVG support after Google IO 2011 conference...
I really wish to play with SVG on Android mobile web browsers.
Please, Google, enable SVG.

Forget about it, Google doesn't give a banana about anything that's not hot, so even if you have very capable device like Nexus One, you won't get any SVG, ever. Didn't you get the message? You won't get SVG, because it would take 1MB!

Strangely enough, Apple flipped the switch on enabling SVG on the same codebase for the iPhone Safari browser years ago. They didn't seem to think that the memory overhead was too much for the user experience gained. Google + manufacturers: If you are really competing with Apple, make sure your - at least - on par with them on a feature basis when hardware specs allow it.

Enable SVG now!

It has been enabled for a period. I am sure that it's enabled in Honeycomb, at least, it's enabled on Moto Xoom :-)

Finally, that's great news!  The amount of time it took Google to do this is still amazing, especially considering this blog entry:
http://googlecode.blogspot.com/2009/10/svg-at-google-and-in-internet-explorer.html

IE retarded the growth of web applications for 10 years, with SVG being one example of this.  Google went out of their way (with projects like SVG Web and Chrome Frame) to mitigate this damage and bring the web back on track.

Now, only Android has been left in the dark.  I'm glad things are good from Honeycomb, but now I still have to hold back since all my users are using older Android versions.  SVG Web is not ideal, since not everyone has flash installed.  Chrome isn't available on Android.  And again, it's only Android holding us back now, even IE9 has SVG support.

Google -- would you consider having the Browser available for download from the market, to get updates like Google Maps, etc?  How many manufacturers are shipping modded browsers?

The fact that Google is not using svg's puts mobile web designers/developers in an extremely rough position. We absolutely needed this supported YESTERDAY! It makes no sense to create a device that has such a high ppi ratio, yet not allow the graphical format which it looks best in! Please turn on this feature for all users somehow... To save a megabyte of space on the browser app is not a good enough explanation! Apple, Mozilla, Blackberry, and even Opera - to a degree - support svg!!! Why not the default Android browser? Give me a break... Give us all a break.

I don't care anymore.  I'm going to rewrite all my SVG stuff in Canvas and use a library to convert Canvas to SVG for IE browsers.  SVG is ancient; Canvas is the future!  

Canvas is great! Uh wait no animation. Canvas is still pretty cool, who needs events anyways?

The 2d drawing model is the old tech here.

After reading all 65 comments above, I am sure you would publish an update to your built-in browsers of android 2.1, 2.2, and 2.3 to provide support for SVG.

All i want is my google chart Visualization API to run on Default built-in browsers of Android Phones. (Right now stuck).

wow, just wow

i couldn't believe there can be such an issue with Android OS when friend told me, and i told him that he's wrong, that only Apple would do such things... and when i found out that this thread really exists...all i can say i that i'm just greatly dissapointed

I was testing SVG within phonegap, and for my deception, iPhone works but no go for Android. =\

i need svg support..........

me too. a large customer of ours is currently considering forcing their users to iOS only.

[Comment deleted]

do you know if it's possible to change  WebKit in android 2.2 (even better if you can install a plugin that permits Webkit to handle svg)  with an 'home-made' version of WebKit with SVG support enabled?

1. Could we please not use this list just for people repeating the same point over & over? We *know* that Android browser doesn't support SVG. If you want to make your feelings known, just Star this issue.

2. If you want SVG on Android, try installing Firefox.

1. You took me wrong, i was just asking if i can change webkit without having  to compile everything.

2. I can't use any browser except the default one

There is some plugin support in android webkit, but its mostly undocumented and I believe that google does not want 3rd party developers developing plugins for android (except for Adobe).
There is http://developer.android.com/reference/android/webkit/PluginStub.html
Also try googling for NPAPI android plugin

can anyone send me the zip file for the HTML5WebView with Video playback. If you have a version that also supports SVG that would be great too. I simply need a version that has all options set to true so users are free to watch mp4 or mp3 video and audio as well as sometime enter their usernames and passwords.

flygirlsfo@gmail.com

@Comment 66 by s.anand....@gmail.com, Jun 29, 2011

Use modernizr to check for svg support on the browser.
Then use the old image chart api http://code.google.com/apis/chart/image, for browser that doesn't support svg.

Maybe old news.

When will the android web browser to be removed and replace with Chrome browser for Android soon?

http://androidcommunity.com/android-web-browser-goes-open-source-chrome-incoming-20110823/

https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=66687

All the pain and suffering for 1 meg!!!
10 years after SVG has become a w3 recommendation and it's not supported on Android. Google, it was a bad, bad, terribly bad decision not to support SVG. I'm using a Samsung Galaxy 2 and I can't even look at a simple SVG square using my browser!
Finally IE supports SVG, which means that each and every browser on the planet would have supported SVG, but some smart guy that side decided not to "flick a switch". It's pathetic.

Note the gaping hole when for SVG support under mobile browsers: http://mobilehtml5.org

Android 4 ICS seems to **finally** add SVG support for handsets; can confirm at least that individual SVG files can be loaded in the browser in the SDK emulator.

Now we need Android 4 deployed on all those existing phones and we're set!

Is SMIL working as well ? or only static SVG without any animation

Not just individual files, inline SVG in HTML(buzzword 5) also render, albeit with a few quirks.

John can you point out the quirks in your screenshot?

We really do need SVG on the Android.  With the new capablity to move apps to the smart card, a lot more room is available.  Let's get it done guys.

SVG in the browser is a huge issue for me.  I will be moving ahead with my web apps using SVG and substituting a static PDF for Android 2.x users.  Come on guys, just turn it on in the next 2.x update.

Ditto on need for a 2.x patch that can go out to existing mobile users.

Ditto on need for a 2.x patch that can go out to existing mobile users.

+1 ...we need SVG on mobile to create the kind of vector based web content that our clients are asking for.

Just add it all ready! I mean seriously.

is this atlease planned?

I guess with Chrome for Android released, that is a no :/

SVG works on Android 3 and Android 4. On Chrome and on the standard browser. They made quite clear that they will not backport it to the Android 2 branch.

AVN should be work on the Android 2 branch.

Are <img src="external.svg"> external SVG images loaded within the same thread (and blocking the UI) or loaded in a separate thread from the webpage? That is, will a complex SVG rendering block UI and otherwise while I'm loading it?

I just wanted to contribute, Sorry, but nothing positive to say about SVG implementation in the Nexus One phone browser. I tried Every doctype here ( http://www.htmlhelp.com/tools/validator/doctype.html ) and with html tags Script, Object, SVG, iframe , and experimented with xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" version="1.1" within each tag, then I downloaded and installed on my server ( Apache with PHP ) the  http://www.savarese.com/software/svgplugin/, I tried classid="CLSID:1339B54C-3453-11D2-93B9-000000000000" in the tags.  All No Joy.

Long story short, I'd like to script some server side functions in some SVG maps I'm making, but it looks like I'm forced to use <img><map><area></area></map></img> setup with png's now.

Any constructive advice on any way to make SVG/xml work on a Nexus One default browser, Would be appreciated. I still Love Google,

Not working correctly in lollipop