[thelist] [HW] Re: <spacer>

[aardvark]

> From: "Mark Gallagher" <mark at cyberfuddle.com>
>
> Transparent GIFs means extra rendering time, and the potential

actually, the rendering time needed is more insignificant than one
might think... negotiating the connection is more of a hassle than
anything, but once it's in cache, you're usually all good...

> screwing-up of text-based browsers (I've observed that those who are
> most likely to use the transparent GIF hack are the ones who are also

but that's a whole different story... those are the same folks who
leave alt atributes out of *all* their images, so spacer.gif or not,
the entire page is usually pretty bad...  i don't equate poor coding
practices with qualification for use of an element...

> most likely to be too stupid to use ALT text).  Also, from a purist's
> point of view, it's wrong because you're using markup for
> presentation.

not really... you're already using images for presentation... after
all, what semantic or structural meaning do they have...

despite all this, i won't use a spacer.gif in a CSS layout, only in a
tabled layout... a CSS layout has lots of issues to tackle beyond
some pixel precision, and a spacer.gif usually won't address them
all...

but if i'm making a tabled layout, you can be sure i'm gonna use
spacer.gifs here and there (although i don't use nearly as many as i
used to)...

[...snipped where we agree about CSS...]

> Finally transparent GIFs *don't* work consistently across all
> browsers. Consider Lynx, Links, and any browser with images turned
> off.  Consider w3m. Consider those who use "ordinary" browsers but
> have a different window size
>  - how will that affect your text?

if you're using Lynx, a spacer.gif will *always* act consistently...
it will either render as [INLINE], or if you used alt attributes, it
won't render at all... and since i always use my alts, there's no
problem in a text-only browser...

and for folks with images turned off, your average browser still sets
aside the space for the image, so it still serves its purpose...
those that don't will collapse all the images anyway, making pixel-
precision moot at that point...

and how do different window sizes affect spacer.gifs?

anyway, those three arguments don't fly with me, despite the fact
that i agree a spacer.gif is a hack... unfortunately, with tabled
layouts, it's a necessary one...

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