PNG or not PNG? v. 9 Development Question
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URL: https://forums.webwiz.net/forum_posts.asp?TID=22549
Printed Date: 08 April 2026 at 4:50am
Software Version: Web Wiz Forums 12.08 - https://www.webwizforums.com
Topic: PNG or not PNG? v. 9 Development Question
Posted By: WebWiz-Bruce
Subject: PNG or not PNG? v. 9 Development Question
Date Posted: 29 January 2007 at 9:57am
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While developing version 9 of Web Wiz Forums we have a development question regarding images that we would like feedback on. The issue is whether or not to use PNG images with alpha transparency in Web Wiz Forums version 9. The advantage of PNG images with alpha transparency is that you can create images with clear backgrounds without the fuzzy haze coursed by transparent GIF images. This is very useful when altering things like background colours as it means that you don't get a fuzzy white coloured mark around the graphics and icons which are especially apparent if you change the background in Web Wiz Forums to a darker colour. Using PNG with alpha transparencies would fix this issue. PNG images with alpha trasnparencies have been supported in most browsers for around the last 7 or 8 years, accept Intrenet Explororer which only got support for PNG aplpha trasnparencies in IE7. Versions of IE prior to IE 7 stills how the PNG images but show the transparent background is displayed as a slightly off white colour (although you can use Javascript to get around this issue). The question therefore is should Web Wiz Forums version 9 use PNG images with aplpha transparency? ------------- https://www.webwiz.net/web-wiz-forums/forum-hosting.htm" rel="nofollow - Web Wiz Forums Hosting https://www.webwiz.net/web-hosting/windows-web-hosting.htm" rel="nofollow - ASP.NET Web Hosting |
Replies:
Posted By: Ali Bilgrami
Date Posted: 29 January 2007 at 11:44am
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in my country most ppl are still sticking with IE 6...so doesnt matter what it looks to me they are still gonna see em on IE...but if the JS workaround will be included in V9 then i say go with PNGs as they sure are better than GIFs. ------------- Lets! |
Posted By: javi712
Date Posted: 29 January 2007 at 4:03pm
| With Vista becoming available in stores to everyone tomorrow, I have a feeling a lot of folks will be upgrading to IE 7 soon also. I say stick with the alpha transparent PNGs. |
Posted By: MadDog
Date Posted: 29 January 2007 at 7:49pm
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I would stay away from them for at least another few years. If you have a website that looks good to less than 50% of the market then you will lose 50% of those people. If someone views a website with transparent PNG images the transparent part becomes a ugly green and that would turn off anyone. ------------- http://www.iportalx.net" rel="nofollow"> 
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Posted By: javi712
Date Posted: 29 January 2007 at 8:13pm
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How about including one image version with the download (lets say PNG format) and make the other image version available for download (lets say GIF format) if one chooses to use the other version.
That way we have access to both and can just upload the one you want to use for a quick and easy fix. |
Posted By: iSec
Date Posted: 31 January 2007 at 9:17am
| Or how about creating an aditional skin that is GIF-based... provided that a brief explaination in the control panel tells the admin what the advantages/disadvantages for either skin are...? |
Posted By: MrMellie
Date Posted: 31 January 2007 at 10:49am
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If you replace the hardcoded image names in the asp pages with variable names and then have an include file which defines the image variables, you could give users the option of easily using either PNG or GIF. In one include file all the variables are defined as the PNG images, another inc has all the GIF files. Simply use the relavent include file and images.
Otherwise I'd agree with MadDog and say stick with GIFs for now. The fuzzy edges are just down to the quality of the GIFs and they can easily be cleaned up to look much clearer. |
Posted By: MrMellie
Date Posted: 31 January 2007 at 11:09am
Example:
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Posted By: tjodalv
Date Posted: 31 January 2007 at 12:03pm
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I am for PNG's. I have the same problem on client website (www.bulldogchester.com) and I solved it with PNG's and it is working in all browsers. One way or another user need to enable javascript to use WWF so i don't see why you shouldn't use PNG's with javascript. Sorry for my bad english. Bye |
Posted By: Mikey
Date Posted: 31 January 2007 at 12:07pm
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Quite a hard decision to make but I'd say move over to PNG i tend to use them in all manner of design as they are far superior and i predict that IE6 and lowers coverage will soon diminish. Webwiz should be about moving forward and embracing standards ------------- Handyman man? |
Posted By: Scotty32
Date Posted: 31 January 2007 at 3:34pm
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i think it would be great to use PNGs but - alot of people will still be using IE 6 and due to this, your partically forced to use GIFs if it helps - Roundcube Webmail seems to be able to show PNGs for FF and GIFs for IE ------------- S2H.co.uk - http://www.s2h.co.uk/wwf/" rel="nofollow - WebWiz Mods and Skins For support on my mods + skins, please use http://www.s2h.co.uk/forum/" rel="nofollow - my forum . |
Posted By: dfrancis
Date Posted: 31 January 2007 at 5:27pm
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I've thought about this since it was posted and I would have to side with the gifs on this release. Version 10? Maybe change my mind. It's going to take a little while longer to wean people off of the older browsers. With some of the new features and security concerns of older browser versions, I think it won't take long, relatively speaking that is.
If version 9 is to be released any time in 2007, I would suggest that we stick with the gifs with plans for the png's later on. This issue may give rise to yet another option in the admin to chose the file extension of the standard images. (Just a thought.)
Anyway, I wanted to chime in and offer my opinion.
------------- “If you want things to be different, you must be willing to do different things!” http://www.DavidFrancis.org/?wwf=signature" rel="nofollow - David Francis |
Posted By: WebWiz-Bruce
Date Posted: 31 January 2007 at 6:37pm
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Thanks for the feedback everyone it's very useful. Some things that may help in the decision is that IE7 already has over 20% market share, however IE6 still has 56% but dropping each day as Microsoft force us to update with their auto updates etc. For those using IE 6 or below javascript can be used to enable an IE built in filter that would mean PNG's would display correctly in IE 6 or below. As javascript is required anyway to use Web Wiz Forums this would mean those users who couldn't view the PNG's correctly should be very few. With this in mind would this make a difference to peoples opinions on this? ------------- https://www.webwiz.net/web-wiz-forums/forum-hosting.htm" rel="nofollow - Web Wiz Forums Hosting https://www.webwiz.net/web-hosting/windows-web-hosting.htm" rel="nofollow - ASP.NET Web Hosting |
Posted By: michael
Date Posted: 31 January 2007 at 7:45pm
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I have been using the PNG JS Filter Script successfully for some time now. If someone is no running JavaScript for whatever reason, tough, the forum won't run correctly anyway right? I would just draw a line and cut off those old browsers. / ------------- http://baumannphoto.com" rel="nofollow - Blog | http://mpgtracker.com" rel="nofollow - MPG Tracker |
Posted By: Mikey
Date Posted: 31 January 2007 at 9:18pm
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Personally i think it's reached a point were great software developers should stop crumpling for the old browssers and lead the way in bringing new standards in. To me also i think the javascript / IE filter would be a good way to start the cross over to PNG's ------------- Handyman man? |
Posted By: dfrancis
Date Posted: 31 January 2007 at 9:46pm
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"With this in mind would this make a difference to peoples opinions on this?"
Yes... it changes my mind completely. You are right, if people are unwilling to enable JS, the forum is of no use to them anyway.
I retract my earlier reply and vote in favor of the change.
(Sorry, I know you mentioned the JS filter in your original post... I forgot to consider that when I formed my opinion... my mistake.) ------------- “If you want things to be different, you must be willing to do different things!” http://www.DavidFrancis.org/?wwf=signature" rel="nofollow - David Francis |
Posted By: MrMellie
Date Posted: 01 February 2007 at 9:08am
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After finding this page about the problem:
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/bobosola/index.htm - PNG Alphachannel JS hack I too now think that, yeah, go for it with the JS hack. 49.8% of my users are still using IE6 but as said, they need JS for the forum to work so we might as well push forward with a better graphics format. |
Posted By: mxm.Kosh
Date Posted: 07 February 2007 at 7:09am
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@borg: We developed a new tool some weeks ago. Because this was an internal tool we optimized it for IE7 and FF2. We also used PNGs for layout, icons and gfx-effects. It was very cool to play with png - lot of things we can't do this easy way without png. But we found a problem: So please be careful if you use PNG in V9 - we switched back to GIF and everything is fine now. The only problem is, that we have to create GIF-images for each color instead of creating one PNG with a transparency of 30%... Just a info for you - whatever your decision will be, we'll use V9 anyway =)
Chris ------------- fascination of imagination |
Posted By: WebWiz-Bruce
Date Posted: 07 February 2007 at 8:07am
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Thats very interesting, we will have to certainly do allot of testing before making the final decision then.
------------- https://www.webwiz.net/web-wiz-forums/forum-hosting.htm" rel="nofollow - Web Wiz Forums Hosting https://www.webwiz.net/web-hosting/windows-web-hosting.htm" rel="nofollow - ASP.NET Web Hosting |
Posted By: mxm.Kosh
Date Posted: 07 February 2007 at 2:55pm
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Update:
I've talket with our DOM-god about the PNG problem again and here are more details:
The problem is not the PNG itself. If you just use png-icons as replacement for gif-icons there should be no problems (should!).
If you use png images with alpha-transparency and animate them (fade-effect with javascript for example) the IE rendering engine slows down.
In fact: Everything dynamic (for example ajax) that changes little things (new background-color) forces IE to re-render the page and this seems to be the problem because the rendering of the alpha-channel pngs is buggy...
Hope this helps when you test V9.
Chris ------------- fascination of imagination |
Posted By: mack
Date Posted: 08 February 2007 at 1:26am
You could do this, as converting images to gif is easy. But whats nice about PNG you can use this software: http://brh.numbera.com/software/pnggauntlet/ to convert the PNG's to be even smaller, with no quality loss. |
Scotty32 wrote: