notes on PNG ("ping")
[ first, if you have no idea what PNG is, check this out:
http://www.libpng.org/pub/png/pngintro.html ]
PNG - the Portable Network Graphics format
The most important feature of PNG for web artists and designers, in
my opinion, is the alpha channel. it allows one to create graphics
that will appear anti-aliased against any background color, pattern,
or other images.
The second interesting feature is the built-in gamma correction. This
means that those of us developing on Macs don't have to create images
which look overly light on a Mac in order look correct on a PC.
Images look good cross-platform.
I've been very excited about PNG for a few years but never used it
because one of the most important features, alpha transparency,
wasn't supported in MSIE for windows. But that changed for me today
when i found this information which explains how to use PNG with MSIE
5.5 or later on windows:
http://webfx.eae.net/dhtml/pngbehavior/pngbehavior.html. this
technique uses an .HTC file and a proprietary MSIE filter called
AlphaImageLoader. MSIE 5.x on Mac supports PNG alpha transparency, so
using the method described in the URL above we achieve a
cross-platform effect on MSIE.
–
<twhid>
http://www.mteww.com
</twhid>
notes on PNG
-
Type: discussion
Comments
MSIE 5.x on Mac supports PNG alpha transparency, so using the method
described in the URL above we achieve a cross-platform effect on MSIE.
>
>
(look at me, responding to my own post, what a loser)
i've tested this with Mozilla 1.0 Mac and Netscape 7.0 Preview
Release on Windows and it works with those browsers as well. It
should work with Netscape 6.x on Mac too (since it works with
Mozilla) but i haven't tested it.
PNG has arrived; kill yer GIFs.
–
<twhid>
http://www.mteww.com
</twhid>
on 8/20/02 4:23 PM, t.whid [email protected] ecrit :
> It
> should work with Netscape 6.x on Mac too (since it works with
> Mozilla) but i haven't tested it.
Send me a link to the test pages, I can take a look at it on Netscape6 Mac
for yah. I was also waiting for this format, in fact maybe on my next job
I'll insist that we use .png
All this talk about PNG makes me want to check up on SVG progress, so we can
open source the vectors online and throw macromedia like MR. T did Deepblue:
http://members.tripod.com/swatkins7/tdeep1.htm
-muserna
"""""
( 0 0) <- Ever seen a bucktooth dino with hair?
}. .{ Don't laugh, but you have now.
–uu-
`-' Goofy Dinos only at:
http://home.earthlink.net/~hairymuseum/gdotw
hi muserna,
if you check out the 2nd URL from the original post (see post here =
http://rhizome.org/object.rhiz?6914) you can see some examples if you
poke around a bit.
i'm almost certain netscape supports the png alpha transparency, if
mozilla does there is no reason netscape shouldn't as they both use the
same rendering engine.
the big problem was MSIE windows support and with the method described
in the second URL, it works beautifully. i'm using it on a commercial
project right now :-) and it's super phat.
++
the main problem with SVG is the size of the plugin. sure, every graphic
artist has it as it's installed with illustrator and photoshop, but it's
HUGE (2mb - 4mb depending on OS) compared to the flash plug-in (< 1mb on
every OS), plus it's not as easy to use.
don't get me wrong, i would love SVG to take over for online vectors as
well as in print production (how old is PostScript now?). that is were
SVG could really take off, if you could use the same EXACT format from
web to print (and any other medium that may be invented) and back again.
PLUS, it's *free* and not controlled by one corp (like flash and
PostScript (adobe or am i wrong..).
if it became popular there could be some very low cost authoring
environments available. but it won't be popular for a long, long time,
if ever.
take care
> on 8/20/02 4:23 PM, t.whid [email protected] ecrit :
>
> > It
> > should work with Netscape 6.x on Mac too (since it works with
> > Mozilla) but i haven't tested it.
>
>
> Send me a link to the test pages, I can take a look at it on Netscape6
> Mac
> for yah. I was also waiting for this format, in fact maybe on my next
> job
> I'll insist that we use .png
>
> All this talk about PNG makes me want to check up on SVG progress, so
we
> can
> open source the vectors online and throw macromedia like MR. T did
> Deepblue:
> http://members.tripod.com/swatkins7/tdeep1.htm
>
> -muserna
–
<t.whid>
http://www.mteww.com
</t.whid>