First-class support for WebP image format

[scottdweber]

The support for image formats (e.g. PNG, JPEG) in both the source viewer and in Pull Request files list is excellent and feature-rich. It would be fantastic for WebP images to be supported just as thoroughly, at least for those browsers in which it is supported.

This would be especially helpful for Android projects, where WebP assets are fully supported and have become the recommendation.

[lukeeey]

It would also help when uploading profile images, since you have to first convert it to a supported format to upload it.

[xan2622]

I second this request. I hope .webp images will be supported on Github.

I have tried to upload an image (it was a .webp file) and I was surprised to see this error message:

It's surprising because webp has great specifications, it can even replace .jpg or .png files in many cases.

https://developers.google.com/speed/webp

[AlxHnr]

@xan2622

If you rename your .webp file to .gif, GitHub will allow you to upload it. And since browsers parse the images header first, it will automagically work. I just confirmed this on Firefox and Chrome, both on Linux and Android. This works well for issues, pull requests and READMEs.

[TPS]

I filed this as a stub in community/community#5470. Anyone who'd like to expand, please feel free! 🙇🏾‍♂️