Comparison of layout engines (graphics) Computer Science 464 pasar.pts-ptn.net

The following tables compare graphics compatibility and support for a number of layout engines within web browsers. Please see the individual products' articles for further information. This article is not all-inclusive or necessarily up-to-date.

Unless otherwise specified in footnotes, comparisons are based on the stable versions without any add-ons, extensions or external programs. Version numbers, if possible, are provided for features that are fully supported. Proprietary extensions are not included.

1 Explanation of the tables
- 1.1 Engine nomenclature
- 1.2 Values
2 Image format support
3 See also
4 Notes
5 References

Explanation of the tables

Engine nomenclature

Rather than the names of web browsers, the names of the underlying engines are used. The browsers that use the various engines are listed below.

Layout engine	Release version	Preview version	Used by
Amaya	11.3.1	11.3-pre	Amaya
Gecko	19.0	20.0	All Mozilla software, including Firefox; SeaMonkey and Galeon; Camino; K-Meleon; Flock (up to 2.x); Debian IceWeasel; GNU IceCat (formerly GNU IceWeasel); Icedove, Iceape and Iceowl; Fennec. Also used by the Maple platform in 2010 and 2011 Samsung "SmartTV" devices which are based on the build used in Firefox 3.0.
KHTML		N/A	Konqueror^†
Presto	2.10.229	2.10.238	Opera; Opera Mobile, Nintendo DS & DSi Browser; Internet Channel
Tasman	(IE 5.2.3 for Mac)	none (aborted in 2003)	Internet Explorer 5+ for Mac OS X
Trident	6.0 (IE 10)	6.0 (IE 10)	Internet Explorer and other Internet Explorer shells like Maxthon (Microsoft Windows operating systems only), Windows Phone 8
WebKit	534.20	r146740	Tizen (both OS and browser), Safari (both desktop and mobile), Google Chrome, Maxthon 3, Shiira, iCab 4, OmniWeb 5.5+, Web, Adobe AIR, Midori, Adobe Dreamweaver CS4 and CS5, Android browser, Palm webOS browser, Symbian S60 browser, OWB, Steam, Rekonq, Arora, Flock (version 3+), RockMelt, Dolphin Browser, Sleipnir, Konqueror^†, rekonq. Used by the LG Smart TV platform to enable web content on TVs.

^† In Konqueror, the user can switch layout engine.

Values

Values indicate the level of support in the most recent version of the layout engine, or (if a version number is given) in the specified version. Version numbers without any other value indicate the version at which the layout engine first fully supported the feature.

Value	Meaning
Yes	Indicates that the layout engine fully supports this property/element when valid values are used.
No	Indicates that the property/element is completely ignored.
Partial	Indicates that the property/element is understood, but that not all values are supported. Supported values are implemented correctly.
Incorrect	Indicates that the property/element is understood, but that it is not implemented correctly in all cases.
Experimental	Indicates that the property/element is understood, but supported under an alternate name. May be incomplete or buggy.
Dropped	Indicates that the property/element is no longer supported.
Nightly build	Indicates that the property/element is supported to some extent in an experimental/nightly build. Future support is expected.
Depends	Indicates that the property/element is supported only on certain platforms, or if certain settings are configured.

Image format support

		Trident	Tasman	Gecko^{[note 1]}	WebKit	KHTML^{[note 2]}	Presto	Prince XML
JPEG/JFIF		<3.1^{[IE 3.0]}	Yes	1.0	85	Yes	1.0	3.0
JPEG 2000 (.jp2)		No	No	No^{[g 1]}	Depends^{[note 3]}	No	No	No
JPEG XR		5.0^{[t 1]}	No	No^{[g 2]}	No	No	No	No
GIF	GIF 89a	<3.1^{[IE 3.0]}	Yes	1.0	85	Yes	1.0	5.0
GIF	GIF 87a	<3.1^{[IE 3.0]}	Yes	1.0	85	Yes	1.0	5.0
PNG	1.2 (W3C/ISO/IEC version)	3.1	Yes	1.0	85	Yes	1.0	3.0
	1.1
	1.0
MNG	1.0	No	No	Dropped^{[g 3]}	No^{[w 2]}	Yes	No	No
JNG	1.0			Dropped^{[g 3]}	No	Yes	No
APNG	1.0			1.9	No^{[w 3]}	No^{[k 1]}	2.1
BMP		Yes	?	Yes	Yes	Yes	1.0	?
WBMP		No	?	No^{[g 4]}	?	?	1.0	?
ICO		Yes	?	Yes	Yes	Yes	1.0	?
TIFF		5.0^{[t 1]}	No	No^{[g 5]}	No	Yes^{[k 2]}	No	3.0^{[note 4]}
XBM		Dropped^{[note 5]}	Yes^{[note 6]}	Dropped^{[note 7]}	Yes	?	1.0	No
WebP		No	No	No^{[g 7]}	534.10^{[w 4]}	No	2.8.131^{[p 1]}	No

JPEG support

Comparison of various JPEG/JFIF feature support.

		Trident	Tasman	Gecko	WebKit	KParts	Presto	Prince XML^{[note 8]}
Operation mode	Progressive	<3.1^{[IE 3.0]} ^{[note 9]}	Yes	1.0	85	Yes	1.0	3.0
	Baseline	<3.1^{[IE 3.0]}						3.0
	Hierarchical							?
	Lossless							No

GIF support

Comparison of various GIF feature support.

		Trident	Tasman	Gecko	WebKit	KParts	Presto	Prince XML^{[note 10]}
GIF 87a	Interlacing	3.1	Yes	1.0	85	Yes	1.0	3.0
GIF 89a	Binary transparency
GIF 89a	Animation

PNG support

Comparison of various PNG feature support.^[1]^[2]^[3]

		Trident	Tasman	Gecko	WebKit	KParts	Presto	Prince XML^{[note 11]}
Color mode^{[note 12]}	True color	<3.1^{[IE 4.0]}	Yes	1.0	85	Yes	1.0	3.0
	Grayscale
	Palette-based (max. 256 colors)
Alpha channel		3.1	Yes	1.0	85	Yes	1.0	3.0
Gamma correction		5.0^{[t 2]}		Partial^{[note 13]}	Incorrect^{[note 14]}	No^{[k 3]}	Partial^{[note 13]}	?
Color correction		5.0^{[t 2]}		1.9	?	?	No	3.0
Interlacing		Incorrect^{[note 15]}		1.0	?	4.0	1.0	?
Integrity checking		?	?	?	?	?	?	?

Notes

^ Gecko uses the libpr0n library to render images.
^ Does not have any native image support. This is by design: in Konqueror, multimedia files are handled by KParts.
^ JPEG 2000 support is only available on the Mac OS X platform.^{[w 1]} (Note that the referenced link leads to the Mozilla Bugzilla, where this was brought up and confirmed.)
^ Prince uses the libtiff library to load TIFF images.
^ Trident dropped support for XBM in Internet Explorer version 6.0.
^ As of 5.2.3, the last publicly released version.
^ Gecko dropped XBM support in version 1.9.2.^{[g 6]}
^ Prince uses the libjpeg library from the Independent JPEG Group to load JPEG images.
^ Trident only displays progressive JPEGs once they have been completely downloaded.
^ Prince uses the libungif library to load GIF images.
^ Prince uses the libpng library to load PNG images.
^ There are 15 combinations of the color modes in PNG but not all modes are available in every image editor.
^ ^a ^b Gecko and Presto currently support gamma correction for all color profiles except for ICC-profile.^[4]
^ Webkit incorrectly applies gamma correction to unlabeled PNGs.^{[w 5]}
^ In Trident, interlaced PNGs are displayed progressively, but in 1D instead of 2D.

References

Trident references

^ ^a ^b Protalinski, Emil (2010-03-16), Platform Preview gives Web developers first taste of IE9, Ars Technica, http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2010/03/platform-preview-gives-web-developers-first-taste-of-ie9.ars/2
^ Windows Internet Explorer Platform Preview, Microsoft, 2010-03-15, http://ie.microsoft.com/testdrive/info/ReleaseNotes/Default.html

Gecko references

Webkit references

KHTML references

Presto references

^ Opera 11.10 for Windows changelog, Opera Software, http://www.opera.com/docs/changelogs/windows/1110/

Other references

^ "Jason Summers's web site", Browser test / demonstration pages, http://entropymine.com/jason/testbed/, retrieved May 1, 2005
^ "PNG and MNG tools", Browser gamma test, http://pmt.sourceforge.net/gamma_test/, retrieved May 1, 2005
^ "PNG (Portable Network Graphics) Home Site", PNG-supporting Browsers, http://www.libpng.org/pub/png/pngapbr.html, retrieved May 1, 2005
^ Roelofs, Greg, Browser Gamma-Consistency Test, http://www.libpng.org/pub/png/colorcube/

Graphics file formats

Comparison Browser support for SVG

Raster	ANI ANIM APNG ART BEF BMP BSAVE CAL CIN CPC CPT DPX ECW EXR FITS FLIC FPX GIF HDRi HEVC ICER ICNS ICO / CUR ICS ILBM JBIG JBIG2 JNG JPEG JPEG 2000 JPEG-LS JPEG-HDR JPEG XR MNG MIFF PBM PCX PGF PGM PICtor PNG PPM PSD / PSB PSP QTVR RAD RGBE SGI TGA TIFF TIFF/EP TIFF/IT Logluv TIFF WBMP WebP XBM XCF XPM

Raw	CIFF DNG ORF

Vector	AI CDR CGM DXF EVA EMF Gerber HVIF IGES PGML SVG VML WMF Xar

Compound	CDF DjVu EPS PDF PICT PS SWF XAML

Related	Exchangeable image file format (Exif) Extensible Metadata Platform (XMP)

Layout engines

Actively developed layout engines	Amaya Gecko KHTML Prince Trident WebKit

Inactive layout engines	Boxely Gazelle GtkHTML HTMLayout iCab Mariner Presto Tasman Tkhtml

Comparison of layout engines	HTML non-standard HTML HTML5 media canvas XML XHTML 1.1 MathML SVG CSS ECMAScript DOM Graphics Typography

Comparison of layout engines (graphics)

Contents