[thelist] I hate Fireworks

Simon Baier sbaier at guinnessgroup.com
Wed Oct 10 11:47:52 CDT 2001


... it was the phrase "semi-proprietary format" used to describe the PNG
that prompts my first time posting to evolt.

png is not proprietary.  It was standardized by the W3C with several clear
objectives:
- open license (unlike GIF which CompuServe owns and occasionally threatens
to start charging for usage of)
- lossless (unlike GIF and JPEG)
- well compressed (usually more so than GIF and often JPEG)
- support for Indexed color (unlike JPEG)
- support for truecolor (unlike GIF)
- support or transparency (unlike JPEG)

>From the w3c site (http://www.w3c.org/Graphics/PNG/)
PNG is an extensible file format for the lossless, portable, well-compressed
storage of raster images. PNG provides a patent-free replacement for GIF and
can also replace many common uses of TIFF. Indexed-color, grayscale, and
truecolor images are supported, plus an optional alpha channel for
transparency. Sample depths range from 1 to 16 bits.  The PNG specification
was issued as a W3C Recommendation on 1st October, 1996.

Minuses:
- many browsers still do not support, or effectively support PNG.
- JPG can generally compress photographic images smaller than PNG.

With that said, I am still an Adobe bigot who hates Fireworks and rarely
uses PNG. :)



<tip type="Microsoft Internet Explorer" author="Simon Baier">
Favorite MSIE Keyboard Shortcuts:
	[CTRL][Enter] - adds "http://www" before, and ".com" after the contents of
the address bar.
	[CTRL][N]     - open New instance of browser
	[CTRL][O]     - Open address
	[CTRL][R]     - Refreshes Screen (can also use [F5])

	[ALT][Home]   - go to your home (default) page.
	[ALT][left arrow]  - back  (can also use [Backspace])
	[ALT][right arrow] - forward

	[F11] - toggle full screen
</tip>


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Simon Baier
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