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PNG Second Edition Is a W3C Proposed Recommendation

Posted by michael on from the just-in-time-for-lzw-patent-to-expire dept.

Quadraphonic writes "I'm surprised I haven't seen this yet: PNG Second Edition is a W3C Proposed Recommendation. Thoughts?"

6 of 66 comments (clear)

  1. PNG version 2?? by mhesseltine · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Honestly, who the hell is using version 1? Most pages still serve JPEG and (God help us) GIF files for images. Was there a feature missing from PNGv1 that was slowing adoption?

    As much as I agree with the idea of standards, the fact is, if no one bothers to follow them, or implement them, what's the point?

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    1. Re:PNG version 2?? by Universal+Nerd · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Missing feature is support for alpha-channels in MSIE.

      Single bit transparency (GIFs) suck compared to pages with alpha channel transparencies but since MSIE can't render them correctly they fail to make the market.

      Oh, there's another problem - lack of a good program to save PNGs. AFAIK, Gimp is the best PNG generator around all the Windows photo editing software I used to use (Photoshop and Paint Shop Pro) generated terribly large PNGs, I used to save them as GIFs.

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      Ash nazg durbatuluk, ash nazg gimbatul Ash nazg thrakatuluk agh burzum-ishi krimpatul
  2. Re:Great! by Universal+Nerd · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I like PNGs, I really do, I try to use them whenever I can but the problem is that MSIE doesn't render the alpha channel correctly without a CSS hack to the IMG tag.

    I agree with you, I'll be looking forward to seeing PNGs used in mainstream sites (such as Slashdot) in 2006, if not later.

    Good ideas without corporative support will always remain just that, good ideas.

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    Ash nazg durbatuluk, ash nazg gimbatul Ash nazg thrakatuluk agh burzum-ishi krimpatul
  3. Re:I have a thought... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I agree. I've done the gif/png comparisons on filesize for Slashdot, and they're really missing out on some good bandwidth savings. It would also be a nice "open" gesture and perhaps persuade a few other people to follow. PNG + CSS could be of tremendous help to Slashdot.

  4. What's the point? by Masa · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I just made few PNGs with GIMP and used them at a web page. To my surprise, the pictures didn't look right because the IE6 doesn't seem to support PNGs correctly. The whole point of using the PNGs at the page was that they offer nice support for transparency and alpha channel. But IE6 rendered the pictures using black background and the whole page looked like a shit.

    I'm not saying that we have to slow down the technological progress because IE can't support standards, but come one, if the major player isn't supporting even the older version of the standard (PNG v.1 is a part of the W3C standards, right?) then how could we expect anyone to support yet another version?

  5. Re:Great! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting
    Later, Brian of MS says, "Legacy OSes have reached their zenith with the addition of IE 6 SP1. Further improvements to IE will require enhancements to the underlying OS."
    So, enhancements to the underlying OS are necessary for the features that most other modern browsers have, such as transparent PNGs, popup blocking, and tabbed browsing? Obviously, they have no intention of ever adding these features to IE. This is awful.

    If you turn on your noodle and read between the lines, what he's saying is that older operating systems won't be able to get IE 7, for example. Not that there will never be popup blocking or transparent PNG support, but that if someone with Windows 98 wants the latest version of IE (with those features implemented), they will need to upgrade their whole operating system to Windows XYZ.