On 11/27/06, Erik Moeller erik@wikimedia.org wrote:

The servers appear to be configured to render transparency in SVG using a chessboard pattern: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:LithuanianHistory.svg

Is that actually desired by anyone? It seems more useful for debugging purposes than for actually using images.

AFAIK it's only on the image page... it can be very useful there: for example, the large amount transparency in the file you linked is probably a bad idea, but without the checkerboard you couldn't see it.

I think we need to have a function to display transparency. I have no opinion on if that the image page should be overloaded to perform that function.

Erik Moeller wrote:

The servers appear to be configured to render transparency in SVG using a chessboard pattern: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:LithuanianHistory.svg

No, actually this is a background image set using CSS. The chessboard pattern is not part of the png (try "view image").

Is that actually desired by anyone? It seems more useful for debugging purposes than for actually using images

It wouldn't be a good idea for Wikipedias, but at least for Commons, it is quite helpful: it allows you to see on first glance which images have transparency where. This avoids images with a white background to be considered redundant to ones with a transparent background, and helps people to see which images are suitable for use on a colored background (especially for icons) .

I feel this setup is badly needed at least for image description pages. I also like to have it on galleries and in categories, but that may be a matter of taste. Also, the "chessboard" could easily be turned on and off using a bit of JS code... or of course your custom monobook.css.

-- Daniel