Fate of xlink, opinion needed

[baybal]

XML preamble xlink: and namespace declaration xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" is no longer needed in every web renderer these days. https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/SVG/Attribute/href

This has been a proposal since SVG 1.2, and this is why some renders not explicitly supporting 2.0 has its support.

Instead of <use x="-19" y="170" xlink:href="#o"/> you can simply use <use x="-19" y="170" href="#o"/>

Support in browsers is certainly there, but I can't say so for offline renderers. Librsvg doesn't seem to do it despite having most complete 1.2 support of all offline renderers.

[edent]

Hmmm.... It looks like it still doesn't work in Safari. And Ubuntu doesn't seem to natively support it - either in EOM or file thumbnails.

I think we need to bring it back, for better compatibility. Or will that take any tiny SVG over the limit?

[baybal]

Most Linux viewers use Librsvg. The question is if we continue this as a web first iconset.

Question about Safari, can you find somebody with a macintosh computer to check how things are in real life with last Safari version?

[edent]

Safari Version 12.0.3 (13606.4.5.3.1) - these icons are broken

[baybal]

Ok, xlink would it be...

[edent]

Yes, I think we need to add them back in. Will work for some of the icons - but others will be too large.

[judeGibbons]

This would add 49 bytes if href is used once, and 6 more bytes for each subsequent use. I agree it should be done, probably for all of them for consistency even if href isn't used in the file. (However, ré DuckDuckGo... 😭)

[baybal]

@edent can you check if adding namespace prefix works without namespace declaration is Safari?

[edent]

Just adding the namespace does not work.

Best I can do is xmlns:x="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" which then lets you do <use x:href="#c"

So that's an extra 39 bytes for the namespace, and an extra 2 for each use. Not terrible.

[baybal]

I'll switch all uses of unnamespaced href to x:

[edent]

Thanks :-)

[edent]

Ah, there's a problem. xmlns:x= doesn't work when viewing the files in Linux or when converting to Android Drawable. That requires xmlns:xlink=

[baybal]

For as long as we do "web first," I see no issue there. Hardcoded namespaces are, well, hardcoded namespaces...

[edent]

I think you're probably right. Just makes it a pain when generating the Android Vectors. Oh well!

[chris-morgan]

When SVG is parsed with the HTML parser (which mostly means: when you use inline SVG), x:href won’t work; it does exact matching for xlink:href, because it’s not actually handling XML namespaces.

I extremely strongly recommend migrating back from x to xlink.