PNGs on the web

[Pissed_Macman]

In order to make my site's logo look really cool I uploaded it as a PNG. When I'm in Mozilla it show's up fine, but when I view the page in IE theres a big fat "x" there. Are PNGs meant to be web image files and whos browsers will it show up in?

[flap]

yes, pngs are fine and IE should be able to display them. what version is it?

[Pissed_Macman]

Mac version 5.1, but I rarely use it so I don't care. As long as other people can see it.

[Master of Reality]

i dont think IE can handle a transparent layer in PNG

[rtgwbmsr]

Mildly OT

*Do not use PNGs too much (more than one or two on a page)*
They are too big, and will slow loading times down significantly. I used to use PNGs for most of the images on my front page and it took 97 seconds to load for a non-broadband user. I replaced them with JPGs (same visible quality) and now the site loads in 6 seconds on non-broadband and pretty much instantly on cable/dsl.

[ December 03, 2002: Message edited by: The Muffin Man ]

[Pissed_Macman]

At least I'm using PNG for only 1 image. If anyone has dial-up, could they visit my site real quick and see how long it takes the title logo to load just out of curiosity?

[Kintaro]

Have a look at gilpins garage in IE, then Mozilla...
www.gilpinsgarage.cjb.net

AND NO IE DOES NOT SUPPORT PNGS PROPERLY!!!

[ December 04, 2002: Message edited by: X11 / BOB: l33t h4x0r ]

[Master of Reality]

quote:Originally posted by The Muffin Man:
Mildly OT

*Do not use PNGs too much (more than one or two on a page)*
They are too big, and will slow loading times down significantly. I used to use PNGs for most of the images on my front page and it took 97 seconds to load for a non-broadband user. I replaced them with JPGs (same visible quality) and now the site loads in 6 seconds on non-broadband and pretty much instantly on cable/dsl.

[ December 03, 2002: Message edited by: The Muffin Man ]

what if you compress them? I use PNGs quite a lot and they dont seem that slow.... but then again i am usually changing them from bitmaps.

[ December 04, 2002: Message edited by: The Master of Reality / B0B ]

[voidmain]

PNG is to JPEG as Ogg is to MP3 (morally, not physically). I use PNG quite often, although I also make heavy use of JPG. PNGs are morally right (patent free) and do have a few qualities that are better than JPG (lossless compression vs lossy compression), however JPG compression is hard to beat (lossy compression usually can be much smaller).

I suggest liberal use of PNG (but follow size/speed considerations). To hell with Microsoft and their old crappy browsers that can't support open formats.

[DC]

quote:Originally posted by void main:
PNG is to JPEG as Ogg is to MP3 (morally, not physically). I use PNG quite often, although I also make heavy use of JPG. PNGs are morally right (patent free) and do have a few qualities that are better than JPG (lossless compression vs lossy compression), however JPG compression is hard to beat (lossy compression usually can be much smaller).

If there is a patent covering JPEG's or not is at least debatable, plus the guys who make it are far from morally challenged.
PNG is, at least in theory, a much better format however (there are some implementation issues - some of which can be described starting with "M"), so I'd use it instead of JPEG if possible (transparancy support is a non-issue here - JPEG doesn't have it either), just use decent compression.

IIRC, IE displays transparancy correct, but it can't use alpha blending. I could be wrong though, and I'm not in position to test it.

[voidmain]

Yes I understand that the *real* guys working on JPEG are as morally competent as the PNG guys. The only difference is PNG doesn't have some unknown dark patent issue lurking under it. The JPEG issue hasn't been resolved as far as I know but the last I saw all indications looked good for JPEG but I don't believe anything has gone to court or if that will ever happen. Maybe you have some good updated info.. And a more accurate comparison would have been "PNG is to GIF as Ogg is to MP3".  

I prefer to use PNG precisely *because* many of the M$ browsers are broken. That might cause some M$ punter to switch to Mozilla. For the rest, to hell with them.  

[ December 04, 2002: Message edited by: void main ]

[Gooseberry Clock]

Just a big black box for me (IE 6 on Win 98). But after resaving it in Paint Shop Pro, it showed just fine.

quote:Originally posted by void main:
PNG is to JPEG as Ogg is to MP3.

I don't think that's quite right, It's:

PNG is to JPEG as Monkey's Audio is to MP3.

[voidmain]

quote:Originally posted by * Red Ranger Software * PC Commando:
I don't think that's quite right, It's:

PNG is to JPEG as Monkey's Audio is to MP3.

I believe you are correct sir. That is a better comparison, at least technically (lossless vs lossy). My comparison was more of a moral comparison. Have you used this Monkey's Audio? What would the typical file size be on a 4 minute song ripped from CD? With MP3 or Ogg I would expect somewhere around 3-4MB.

[Pissed_Macman]

I was visiting my site using IE on a Compaq running Win2000 when I realized that there was a large black rectangle where my logo should be. I'm beginning to get a little worried that a lot of visitors won't be able to see the title of the site.

[Doogee]

who cares, its there fault for using a shit house browser. u can just use alt tags anyway, theyll know what its meant to be.