SMIL on? | CSS-Methods

I used to be chatting with Andy Clarke the opposite day a couple of new article he needs to jot down about SVG animations.

“I’ve learn some issues that stated that SMIL is perhaps a lifeless finish.” He stated. “Whaddya assume?”

That was my impression, too. Sarah Drasner summed up the state of affairs properly method again in 2017:

Sadly, help for SMIL is waning in WebKit, and has by no means (nor will probably ever) exist for Microsoft’s IE or Edge browsers. 

Chrome was additionally in on the celebration and revealed an intent to deprecate SMIL, citing work in different browsers to help SVG animations in CSS. MDN linked to that very same thread in its SMIL documentation when it revealed a deprecation warning.

Effectively, Chrome by no means deprecated SMIL. No less than in response to this reply within the thread dated 2023. And since then, we’ve additionally seen Microsoft’s Edge undertake a Chromium engine, successfully making it a Chrome clone. Additionally, final I checked, Caniuse experiences full help in WebKit browsers.

Now, I’m not saying that SMIL is completely alive and properly. It might nonetheless very properly be within the doldrums, particularly when there are strong alternate options in CSS and JavaScript. However it’s additionally not lifeless within the water.