Request to Safari users

y, totally, this is bogus!

too bad dave hyatt doesn't allow comments on his blog anymore.


On Friday, July 25, 2003, at 03:17 AM, Nick Barker wrote:

> Safari does not seem to animate background animated gifs - see
> http://www.playdamage.org/43.html
> There are only 2 messages at the Apple forums regarding this so I
> guess it is not an issue for most users so far
> As it is probably of more concern to net art viewers/creators I am
> posting this request for Safari users to report it to Apple using the
> safari>report bugs to apple feature on the browser
> You can visit a page that you know uses animated background images
> before reporting the bug and that address will be automatically sent
> as an example
>
> MacNab
–
<t.whid>
www.mteww.com
</t.whid>

The responses at http://discussions.info.apple.com/ so far

Sylvan RE: Request to Safari users
(msg # 1.: Posted Jul 26, 03 10:52 am)
Posts: 42

I think animated backgrounds are incredibly annoying. I don't miss it as a feature any more than <blink>. :-)

You could use Flash to do what you're trying to do.




Latin Dragon RE: Request to Safari users
(msg # 2.: Posted Jul 26, 03 10:58 am)
Posts: 275

Nick,

I reported this bug to Apple everytime a new version of Safari was released.

The logic way for people not interested in animated gifs to deal with them, is to have an option in preferences to turn them off





t.whid wrote:

> y, totally, this is bogus!
>
> too bad dave hyatt doesn't allow comments on his blog anymore.
>
>
> On Friday, July 25, 2003, at 03:17 AM, Nick Barker wrote:
>
> –
> <t.whid>
> www.mteww.com
> </t.whid>
>

Sylvan
RE(2): RE: Request to Safari users
(msg # 2.1.1: Posted Jul 26, 03 2:06 pm)
Posts: 54
Part of the whole "web art" thing is figuring out how to use a browser's capabilities to accomplish a certain end.
If all you want is a large animated graphic, a streaming movie or Flash animation is a more effective way of doing that.
If your aim is to use HTML to create "art", then you need to accept the browser's capabilities and work within them. That's part of the challenge, and those constraints lead to interesting solutions.

Safari is built to be a good web browser; not an artistic canvas. Animated backgrounds do not enhance the readability or utility value for most users; just like <blink>, it's mostly an annoyance. I think Apple are making the right decision in disabling such a feature

Timothy Whidden RE(3): RE: Request to Safari users
(msg # 2.1.1.1: Posted Jul 26, 03 5:14 pm)

Posts: 5
wow. this post is offensive to artists on so many levels. love the "quotes" as if "web art" isn't "art" at all.

from my quick search it doesn't seem like the W3C has anything to say about it.

But if we disable the feature in background GIFs, why not in *all* GIFS? why not disable animation all together? I find lots of animation annoying. Because animation is subjectively more *annoying* is not a reason to not support it, it's an excuse.

But there is a good reason to support animated background GIFS: Animation is part of the GIF format. Safari should support the format, not selectively support it. I *HATE* the fact that MSIE on windows selectively supports PNG (will display it but without the alpha transparency). How is Safari's selective support of the GIF format any different?

If the majority of people find it annoying than the Apple can turn it off by default and allow users to enable it.

> Sylvan
> RE(2): RE: Request to Safari users
> (msg # 2.1.1: Posted Jul 26, 03 2:06 pm)
> Posts: 54
> Part of the whole "web art" thing is figuring out how to use a
> browser's capabilities to accomplish a certain end.
> If all you want is a large animated graphic, a streaming movie or
> Flash animation is a more effective way of doing that.
> If your aim is to use HTML to create "art", then you need to accept
> the browser's capabilities and work within them. That's part of the
> challenge, and those constraints lead to interesting solutions.
>
> Safari is built to be a good web browser; not an artistic canvas.
> Animated backgrounds do not enhance the readability or utility value
> for most users; just like <blink>, it's mostly an annoyance. I think
> Apple are making the right decision in disabling such a feature

rhizome <[email protected]> a 'crit:

>If your aim is to use HTML to create "art", then you need to accept the
>browser's capabilities and work within them. That's part of the challenge,
>and those constraints lead to interesting solutions.

hm.. guess there are more interesting constraints to choose from

browsers should d-fault 2 follow standards

next allow user to change/hook in whatever


lo_y

I agree - so what is the standard re animating background images?


> browsers should d-fault 2 follow standards

> next allow user to change/hook in whatever

lo_y


>If your aim is to use HTML to create "art", then you need to accept the
>browser's capabilities and work within them. That's part of the challenge,
>and those constraints lead to interesting solutions.

Sylvan

And it appears that net.art is down for the count, one more time.
-e.


—– Original Message —–
From: "Nick Barker" <[email protected]>

> The responses at http://discussions.info.apple.com/ so far
>
> Sylvan RE: Request to Safari users
> (msg # 1.: Posted Jul 26, 03 10:52 am)
> Posts: 42
>
> I think animated backgrounds are incredibly annoying. I don't miss it as a
feature any more than <blink>. :-)
>
> You could use Flash to do what you're trying to do.

> >If your aim is to use HTML to create "art", then you need to accept
> the
> >browser's capabilities and work within them. That's part of the
> challenge,
> >and those constraints lead to interesting solutions.
>
> hm.. guess there are more interesting constraints to choose from
>
> browsers should d-fault 2 follow standards
>
> next allow user to change/hook in whatever
>
>
> lo_y


Here are a few more comments generated by this topic at
http://discussions.info.apple.com/
Discussions > Safari > Request to Safari users


Sylvan RE(4): RE: Request to Safari users
(msg # 2.1.1.2.1: Posted Jul 26, 03 8:14 pm)
Posts: 72

browsers should d-fault 2 follow standards

OMG! Teh psot is s0 r1ght!!!!

Safari does follow W3C standards. Its CSS implementation isn't perfect, and it has some Javascript bugs, but I think for a 1.0 release it's great.

This is the best site for tracking Safari's standards compliance:
http://diveintomark.org/safari/

I'm not aware of a standard that mandates animating gifs while in the background. That's quite possibly a user-interface design decision. Animated backgrounds can make content harder to read and result in a confusing and frustrating browser experience. Along with BLINK, pop-up windows, etc. it's one of those things that 99.9% of the time doesn't add to the user's enjoyment of the web. Apple also isn't interested in cluttering the preferences window with unnecessary settings. For a best-case experience, animated backgrounds can be safely excluded.

Now if only they'd disable any Javascript that resizes the root window.


guess there are more interesting constraints to choose from

That's the thing about constraints. We generally don't get to choose them.

You could always try putting your animated gifs in the body of the document, and placing content on top on layered or CSS repositioned blocks.



Timothy Whidden RE(5): RE: Request to Safari users
(msg # 2.1.1.2.1.1: Posted Jul 26, 03 9:28 pm)
Posts: 6

the question is this:

Does Safari support the GIF format or not?

If it does then it shouldn't matter how the GIF is being displayed in the browser, whether through an tag, a background attribute on another tag or using the background-image property in CSS.

If I make an animated GIF and Safari claims to support the format then I would like my GIF displayed the way I created it.

Safari is well on it's way to being the default browser on OSX and it's important to support the most popular animated image format on the Web completely, not partially.



Sylvan RE(6): RE: Request to Safari users
(msg # 2.1.1.2.1.1.1: Posted Jul 26, 03 9:50 pm)
Posts: 72

Does Safari support the GIF format or not?

Disingenuous and misleading.

Safari supports Java. But you can't have a Java applet in the background of a page.

Safari supports Quicktime movies. But you can't have Quicktime movies in the background of a page.

Safari supports HTML text. But you can't have HTML as the background of an HTML document.

The W3C specification allows for the use of image files to place a background behind a document. Nothing about that specification mandates that all features of an image format need to be honored.

Safari animates GIF images, streaming JPEGs, Flash animations, etc. when they are part of the content of a page.

It's a designer's job to make effective use of the toolbox available to them. "Web art" is not about using the web to communicate information to a user: it's about abusing the browser to whatever extent possible to create some nifty effects.

If you have an image that needs to be animated for a user to view it, then it can be presented as part of the content of a page.

Forcing backgrounds to be static, if that was Apple's intent, results in a better reading/browsing experience when loading those obnoxious, amateurish pages that throw in poor graphics, midi music, badly colored fonts, etc. on top of animated starfields or marching teddybears.

No, the REAL question is, what do you need to display to the user? Safari displays the vast majority of web pages I've ever visited perfectly. If you need to present the user with graphics, or text, or multimedia, Safari does that just fine. If you feel you absolutely have to present the user with a content layer over an animated layer, then bare HTML simply isn't the best tool for the job. Use a Flash animation or similar.

"But I don't want to" is your choice. Your choice shouldn't dictate how Apple develops their browser.

At 03:21 27/07/03 -0400, you quoted:
>It's a designer's job to make effective use of the toolbox available to
>them. "Web art" is not about using the web to communicate information to a
>user: it's about abusing the browser to whatever extent possible to create
>some nifty effects.

woohoo!
now we know what art is realy about..

lo_y

All I really wanted was to get anyone who might prefer Safari to support animated background gifs to mention it to Apple
but anyway - things are really hotting up over at
http://discussions.info.apple.com/
Discussions > Safari > Request to Safari users

http://discussions.info.apple.com/webx?14@@.5997ffdf/11

Here is the latest

Timothy Whidden RE(7): RE: Request to Safari users
(msg # 2.1.1.2.1.1.1.1: Posted Jul 27, 03 8:39 am)
Posts: 7
quicksilver 867
Mac OS X (10.2.x)
1. drop your ignorant definitions of web art. it's extremely insulting and makes you sound like an idiot.

2. i'm not being disengenious or misleading. there is nothing in HTML that would allow you to have [object] tags render in the background, but come to think of it, why not have java, quicktime movies, flash, or text as the background of the page? you could do some interesting things.

3. i support following standards. i repeat, if images are allowed to be in the background of an HTML doc by W3C standards then it's simply proper practice to support the format completely.

4. why is the background considered not part of the content of the page? lots of the newest CSS techniques use background images to place graphic headings on pages (see this:http://www.stopdesign.com/articles/css/replace-text/). so the distinction is clearly becoming murky as far as web designers are concerned.

5. Would you support not allowing background PNGs to have their alpha-transparency feature?

6. my answer to your real question: I *need* to display a graphic format that the browser claims to support. Don't get me wrong. Safari rocks the house, I use it everyday and I'm using it right now. I want it to be better and animated GIFs make it better for me.

7. Your directive to use different formats doesn't help the thousands of pages already built with this one effect in mind. Sure, web artists understand that their work may be ephemeral, that it can degrade or become lost as technology changes, but in this instance it would be so easy for Apple to fix this one little thing and let some web art live for a bit longer in the Safari browser.

Sylvan RE(8): RE: Request to Safari users
(msg # 2.1.1.2.1.1.1.1.1: Posted Jul 27, 03 9:45 am)

Hi all,

I just got back from out of town. My gut feeling is that this
argument is going to be won (if it's won at all) not by trying to get
coders to recognize the aesthetic value of net art (star peg, square
hole), but by correctly pointing out that animated gifs are standards
compliant, tiling background images are standards compliant, and
setting a gif of any kind as a tiling background is standards
compliant. Safari is failing to support standards in this instance.

I have to go back and recode playdamage.org for Safari anyway,
because it doesn't recognize my vertical center code (and it's
correct not to, there is technichally no <td> height attribute in
HTML4 or XHTML1). Fortunately, there is a CSS layers solution to
this, and I'll just have to retrofit.

There's a way around the non-animating gif background as well – in
CSS, just set the gif as "background-image" of a div layer, set the
layer height and width to 100%, and set its z-index to 0. Again,
it's just more retrofitting for me, but whatever.

The idea of coding my DHTML art to standards is something that never
occured to me, but based on recent events in the commercial browser
world, it's starting to make sense to me. Not to "comply" or to be
"disability friendly," but for archival longevity (to keep from
having to retrofit my site every browser regime change).

What raises my dander is the way that if some coder knows W3C
standards and a modicum of usability practice, he also presumes to be
an expert on aesthetics and "right" uses of the web. The irony is, I
just shared the Seattle Web Design World stage with Jeffrey Zeldman,
Mark Newhouse, Steve Mulder, and a host of standards/usability/xml
superfreaks:
http://www.ftponline.com/conferences/webdesignworld/seattle/speakers.a
sp
Furthermore, I tech edited the industry standard tome on web design
for people with disabilities:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/073571150X/qid5967149
6/
It's not that I'm unaware. It's just that those concerns do not
apply to this use.

peace,
curt

[Feel free to cross-post as beneficial.]



+++++++++++++++++++++++

Nick Barker wrote:

> All I really wanted was to get anyone who might prefer Safari to
> support animated background gifs to mention it to Apple
> but anyway - things are really hotting up over at
> http://discussions.info.apple.com/
> Discussions > Safari > Request to Safari users
>


<snip>

> Posts: 73
>
> >1. drop your ignorant definitions of web art. it's extremely
> insulting and makes you sound like an idiot.
>
> There's no need to become abusive. It's a stretch of the imagination
> to call it "art" at all. Everything you want to display could be done
> in Flash. Using the browser to do it is about technology; not art.
>
>
> >2. i'm not being disengenious or misleading. there is nothing in HTML
> that would allow you to have [object] tags render in the background,
> but come to think of it, why not have java, quicktime movies, flash,
> or text as the background of the page?
>
> Because there's absolutely no need to.
>
> Imagine a page with black text, and a background that animations from
> dark to light to back again. Half the time the text is unreadable.
>
> What you want to do is make the web harder to use for the visually
> impaired and average users, and benefitting only a very tiny niche who
> use browsers as never intended.
>
>
> you could do some interesting things.
>
> You can do "interesting things" without animated backgrounds. The web
> is about communicating; not showing off silly browser tricks.
>
>
> >3. i support following standards. i repeat, if images are allowed to
> be in the background of an HTML doc by W3C standards then it's simply
> proper practice to support the format completely.
>
> If you supported following standards then you'd understand that
> animated backgrounds violate principles of accessibility and
> readability.
>
>
> >4. why is the background considered not part of the content of the
> page?
>
> It underlies the body element or table elements. It is, and should be,
> a static layer that does not interfere with the ability of the user to
> view content lying over it.
>
> Using it to create tiled animating images is a hack that takes
> advantage of what a few browsers did that they never needed to.
>
>
> lots of the newest CSS techniques use background images to place
> graphic headings on pages
>
> In violation of the Semantic Web. How is an audio reader meant to
> render background headlines? So much for standards.
>
>
> >5. Would you support not allowing background PNGs to have their
> alpha-transparency feature?
>
> Alpha transparency doesn't interfere with the usability of a page.
> More disingenuousness.
>
>
> >6. my answer to your real question: I *need* to display a graphic
> format that the browser claims to support.
>
> No, you want it to do something that other browsers did, that there is
> no compelling reason to do. Backgrounds aren't for animating. Again,
> if you want to display content over a large animated field, Safari
> already provides the facility to do that: Flash or Quicktime. You
> could probably even do it in SMIL.
>
>
> I want it to be better and animated GIFs make it better for me.
>
> Animating them underneath the body content layer does not make it
> better for 99% of users; it makes it demonstrably worse. Apple has no
> need to add it in and then add a preferences option: that's hours of
> development time, and unneeded additional complexity added to the
> software.
>
>
> >7. Your directive to use different formats doesn't help the thousands
> of pages already built with this one effect in mind.
>
> It's a hack, a misuse of browsers to begin with. How is this Apple's
> problem?
>
>
> it would be so easy for Apple to fix this one little thing and let
> some web art live for a bit longer in the Safari browser.
>
> Use another browser. Find a way to do it in Safari that works now. Use
> Flash. There's many solutions available to you. People using the web
> as intended, as a communication medium, don't need animated
> backgrounds.

>Hi all,
>
>I just got back from out of town. My gut feeling is that this
>argument is going to be won (if it's won at all) not by trying to
>get coders to recognize the aesthetic value of net art (star peg,
>square hole), but by correctly pointing out that animated gifs are
>standards compliant, tiling background images are standards
>compliant, and setting a gif of any kind as a tiling background is
>standards compliant. Safari is failing to support standards in this
>instance.
>
++
twhid:

hey curt,

i agree. most people could give a shit about web art.

i attempted to point out the utility of animated background GIFs on
the apple discussion board without talking about art and made a
decent arg:

++
in traditional web design there are many useful purposes for an
animated background.

basically you can use the :hover pseudo-class to create animated
rollovers without using javascript. that's a pretty useful feature
AND it *adds to* the semantic web by taking images out of the content
and not relying on alt tags.

for example, presently the only way to have an animated hover effect
is to use javascript and GIFs. if Safari animated background GIFs you
could use text within [a] tags with an animated background GIF called
in by the :hover pseudo-class. you get the best of both worlds:
machine readable and indexable navigation separated from presentation
*and* visually interesting roll over effects. sounds like win/win to
me.
++

re: standards.

this is actually sort of a grey area where developers can decide on
their own. unless i'm mistaken the GIF format isn't controlled by any
standards body (like JPEG) but by a private corp, Unisys (their
patent on the LZW compression has just lapsed so now GIF is 'in the
wild').

so, there isn't a rule in (x)HTML that says a browser *must* display
any image format at all. It's up to the browser manufacturers. that's
my understanding anyway. For a developer to support a format
unevenly, depending on what sort of tag, attribute or property is
used to call the image into the browser seems like bad practice to me.

++
>I have to go back and recode playdamage.org for Safari anyway,
>because it doesn't recognize my vertical center code (and it's
>correct not to, there is technichally no <td> height attribute in
>HTML4 or XHTML1). Fortunately, there is a CSS layers solution to
>this, and I'll just have to retrofit.
>
>There's a way around the non-animating gif background as well – in
>CSS, just set the gif as "background-image" of a div layer, set the
>layer height and width to 100%, and set its z-index to 0. Again,
>it's just more retrofitting for me, but whatever.

++
twhid:
from my one test if you use an animated gif in the background of a
DIV it doesn't animate in Safari.

>
>The idea of coding my DHTML art to standards is something that never
>occured to me, but based on recent events in the commercial browser
>world, it's starting to make sense to me. Not to "comply" or to be
>"disability friendly," but for archival longevity (to keep from
>having to retrofit my site every browser regime change).
>
>What raises my dander is the way that if some coder knows W3C
>standards and a modicum of usability practice, he also presumes to
>be an expert on aesthetics and "right" uses of the web. The irony
>is, I just shared the Seattle Web Design World stage with Jeffrey
>Zeldman, Mark Newhouse, Steve Mulder, and a host of
>standards/usability/xml superfreaks:
>http://www.ftponline.com/conferences/webdesignworld/seattle/speakers.a
>sp
>Furthermore, I tech edited the industry standard tome on web design
>for people with disabilities:
>http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/073571150X/qid5967149
>6/
>It's not that I'm unaware. It's just that those concerns do not
>apply to this use.

++
twhid:
right on dude. the Web has all sorts of applications. not just
publishing texts.

cya
–
<twhid>
http://www.mteww.com
</twhid>