Animated PNG Status

Question

Is animated PNG, whether APNG or MNG about to get cross browser soon? Does anyone know their status? Is Webkit or IE considering supporting them?

Thanks.

Answer 1

Neither of them unlikely to become cross-browser any time soon, or at all.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple-image_Network_Graphics

Answer 2

The complexity of MNG led to the proposal of APNG by developers of the Mozilla Foundation. It is based on PNG, supports animation and is simpler than MNG. APNG offers fallback to single-image display for PNG decoders that do not support APNG. However, neither of these formats is currently widely supported. APNG is supported in Firefox 3.0 and Opera 9.5.[14] The PNG Group decided in April 2007 not to embrace APNG

source

I wouldn't trust in a format not compatible with today browsers.

I would use gif or some Javascript using jQuery for animations instead of a not implemented solution.

Answer 3

MNG is a lost cause. Forget it.

You can use APNG on browsers that support it, and use workarounds for other browsers: http://ajaxian.com/archives/apng-class-get-apng-going-on-all-browsers

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On APNG in Webkit:

------ Comment #1 From Mark Rowe (bdash) 2008-01-26 11:09:57 PST ------- WebKit uses the platform's underlying image libraries for format support, so APNG would need to be implemented there for WebKit to decode it. This would require ImageIO on Mac/Windows to support it (), and QImage for Qt. Only the Gtk and wx ports make use of the bare basic image decoders in the WebKit source tree.

The Chromium issue doesn't have a comment to a similar effect, it appears they use their own decoder, so getting them to support APNG should be easier.

Can't say anything about IE, since they're not commenting much on their plans, but I can imagine they have more important things to fix/implement first...