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for fuck sake #mastodon doesn't support transparent gifs yet? this is an issue.
@wakest because hardly anywhere actually supports gifs anymore. They just turn them into mp4s
@eilis @wakest @broken Yup... If an attachment is not supported by Mastodon's web client, then it will show up as a link. And like you said Mastodon's GIF support is deceptive because it's being transcoded to mp4. To make things even more fun, Tusky does not seem to support GIF, but somehow guesses it's an image, so you get an empty black box.
@wakest @eilis @broken I don't think APNG would get support. If the motivation is indeed to limit file size, then the gain is only marginal by converting GIF to APNG—or simply allowing it directly. However, webm with alpha channel works in FF and Chrome/Chromium, the GIF to video conversion could be improved with webm. Unfortunately, this does not solve perfect looping and sharpness issues.
@wakest @eilis @broken Yes ideally this should be an instance choice, and any known audio/video files working with HTML elements would enable the relevant player—a bit like #pleroma does with audio files I think. And I guess that based on the config of the instance, that would also signify what files said instance would cache locally or instead renders as a link to source?
Also, I would immediately join an instance that exclusively provides toots with embedded #Powerpoint and #VRML :)
@320x200 @eilis @broken I mean we will surely get there, but sadly there is going to be so much fragmentation in this space its going to be really hard for not too technically adept people to know what their instance supports and what the receiving instance supports. gonna get interesting