User talk:SchizoidNightmares

Are SVGs useless on Miraheze or am I doing something wrong?[edit source]

Latest comment: 3 years ago3 comments2 people in discussion

This help request has been answered. If you need more help, you can ask another question on your talk page, or consider joining us on either Discord or IRC at #miraheze ^connect (IRC help disclaimer)

Posting this here, since I cannot post topics on the community noticeboard or the stewards'. I've noticed that SVGs are automatically converted into rasters (sort of defeating the purpose of an SVG in the first place). Not only that, but increasing the size of an SVG from its original uploaded dimensions significantly degrades the quality of the SVG, which is rendered as a raster image. I would demonstrate this here, but unfortunately I am not permitted to upload files on Meta.

The purpose of an SVG is that you can resize it without losing quality. However, because MediaWiki on Miraheze converts the SVG to a PNG automatically, it seemingly renders the purpose of them as completely useless. Unless of course, it would rasterize them correctly at different sizes.

As an example: say I upload schizoidnightmares.svg, which is 81 x 25 by default as defined in the SVG file. That file is then converted by MediaWiki on Miraheze into a PNG file at 81 x 25 pixels. If I say, increase it to 243 x 75 pixels, or anything for that matter, it renders the PNG conversion horribly. Now, on Wikimedia Commons, SVGs are rendered correctly, so it would appear this is an issue with Miraheze. The same file I mentioned in the example renders properly on the commons. You can actually find it on Meta, since it is a Commons file.

This is how it should appear...

Original size:

Scaled up (notice a lack of quality degradation):

On a wiki I am managing on Miraheze, the above demonstration would be very pixelated, even at the original size. --SchizoidNightmares (talk) 23:26, 27 November 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

@SchizoidNightmares: The use of the {{help me}} template is indeed one of the two (or three) best venues for this question. Community noticeboard is also a reasonable venue, but its page protection should expire in just a little over a day from now. I had a quick look at FAQ, but it doesn't appear this question is answered there. I know there's an answer, but it was answered on Discord. I do dislike having to encourage non-Discord users to come to Discord, but do you have a Discord account and, if so, can you join our Discord server and re-ask this question there? If not, would you mind creating a Discord account? Thanks. Dmehus (talk) 23:33, 27 November 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Adding this here as an update. The solution to this problem is to change from ImageMagick as a conversion method for SVGs to Inkscape. This can be done in Special:ManageWiki. Keep in mind, that older image thumbnails will have to be regenerated somehow. Ultimately, however, this issue is solved. --SchizoidNightmares (talk) 07:00, 1 December 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]