Rick Spillane wrote:
The svg file that originally had this "problem" when rendering to a png will indeed not be viewable from IrfanView, but be viewable from Firefox. As for the svg file itself, it still isn't viewable on other svg viewers, even Batik. This probably isn't a problem so much with Inkscape as it is with other svg "compliant" software. However if Inkscape is supposed to produce svg which is viewable on other viewers, then this may be a problem. If I should submit a bug report, I would be happy to do so, and include the svg file causing the problem.
Outside of Inkscape I was just viewing a PNG file. The "problem" was that Inkscape treats the transparency of the background slightly different when exporting then when rendering to screen (and with good cause I might add). On-screen a background necessarily has some opaque color (well, theoretically Inkscape might be able to make the background transparent, but I doubt anyone would appreciate that), when exporting this doesn't have to be the case. And apparently IrfanView simply discards the alpha channel or something, so if anything it's probably a problem with IrfanView and not Inkscape.