ChemWriter on Chrome for Linux and Windows: Working Around the Chrome SVG Bug

By Richard L. Apodaca

2011-02-08T00:00:00.000Z

I'm happy to report that ChemWriter now runs without known issues on Chrome for Linux and Windows.

As reported here previously, SVG on Chrome for Linux and Windows suffers from a known bug that prevents attachment of event listeners to SVG DOM elements under certain conditions. Fortunately, the bug was pinpointed and a simple XHTML file can be used to reproduce the behavior.

Although Chrome recently pushed Version 9 to clients, this update unfortunately didn't fix the problem.

I won't go into how we enabled the workaround here. Suffice it to say - ChemWriter can now be used on all desktop browsers with a significant user base, with custom interfaces for iPad and Android tablets coming soon.

ChemWriter is the ergonomic chemical structure editor for the Web. Written entirely with JavaScript, it requires neither Java nor plugins of any kind. Both commercial and academic license are available to fit your project.