Default 2.2 theme. Images to optimised PNG?

[wacky_hacky]

The patent on LZW has expired (at least in the USA), so that point is moot. However, technically, PNG > GIF - Better Compression at the same quality

I heard that because of this GD might start supporting GIF again. Anyone heard anything about this?

[Not Radio]

When Opera renders tables in a sane fashion (i.e. handling all of the attributes correctly), maybe I will call it decent.

Please don't blame the browser at not rendering your invalid tag soup because it doesn't emulate the deficiencies of Internet Explorer 100%.

My "tag soup" is valid and just fine. If I want a table with no cell spacing whatsoever, then there should be no cell spacing at all when I specify such. I've tried it with CSS and the cellspacing attribute and neither worked.

[Not Radio]

The table issues appear to have been addressed, but I still feel these (below) are good enough reason for me to not use Opera, excluding aesthetic reasons:

http://xehas.org/links/payme.gif
http://xehas.org/links/payme2.gif

I'm pretty sure the markup for both those areas are nice and clean.

As for the comment about "tag soup", I try my best to avoid tables where possible. I close tags and quote all attribute definitions. All my pages pass W3C's XHTML validator given that I insert the doctype (doing so causes a spacing error to occur in Mozilla, bravo guys!). IE is not my target, but I still have to work around if I like getting paid.

[Not Radio]

There's no licensing conflict at all. One is free, the other is not. You can still use GIF's freely, regardless of whether or not the license has expired. You do need to pay royalties if you are distributing software that encodes GIF's.

My bad for not explaining this better. The licensing issue I meant was creating GIFs. The LZW compression algorithm is patented by Unisys so a program like Photoshop, CorelDraw etc pays a licensing fee. If you buy those programs you can create GIFs no problem. But if you use something free like Gimp(www.gimp.org) then you can't create GIFs because of the licensing fee. However you can create PNGs with Gimp. The annoying issue with Microsoft is that with each release they somehow keep forgetting to support transparent PNGs which is a pain in the ass to us using Gimp since we can only create PNGs.

This might have changed recently I don't know. My windows machine has IE 5.5 and even it doesn't support transparent PNGs but maybe that changed in IE 6.0 I'm not sure. IE will render the PNG but just not in a transparent way so you are forced to use a GIF in those situations. It's complete BS that IE can't render a transparent PNG by default, you have to hack it to make it work.

Here's a really good article about it: http://www.alistapart.com/articles/pngopacity/" target="_blank

I'm fully aware of MSIE 6.x and it's multitude of deficiencies, bugs, and general wrongness.

[Not Radio]

When Opera renders tables in a sane fashion (i.e. handling all of the attributes correctly), maybe I will call it decent.

Then you probably never tried table with multiple colspans/rowspans with Mozilla and IE. Both those browsers show it incorrectly and Opera is the only browser that does show it correctly. Example: http://www.icecell.net" target="_blank Look on column on left where it sais "latest news" - and then look at it with Opera and you'll see how it should have been shown (and don't mind incorrect flash movie on top - looks like website owner messed it up again after i fixed it).

I have, and when you specify explicit heights, this is not an issue. How the row heights are justified isn't specified explicitly in the HTML specifications so it's a source issue. Seeing as most of the markup was generated by Adobe ImageReady, you might want to see that the unspanned cells are properly attributed (height being specified for menu's encapsulating elements).

[DoD]

The problems you outline with Opera are valid problems, however, this problem HAS been fixed with Opera 7.5 - however, this is only beta... but perfectly stable, and useable.

What are you on about with the cell spacing? it works fine in opera, no matter where i set it. In the table tag, or in CSS.

Also... if something doesnt work properly in opera... send a message to their bug reports rather than just putting it in the bin.

I know that sounds strange, but when 2.2 beta comes out, (or 2.2 itself) you would be doing the same.

[Kail]

There is no pretty way to make IE render PNGs with alpha-channels nicely. All the methods are messy and require external scripts and stylesheets. Added to that IE's buggy box model for objects and it's generally buggy render engine makes for one crappy browser.
Well, I only use Firefix now and it's superior to any other browser, Opera included.

[RyanThaDude29]

Well, I only use Firefix now and it's superior to any other browser, Opera included.

Amen!

[0racle]

The annoying issue with Microsoft is that with each release they somehow keep forgetting to support transparent PNGs which is a pain in the ass to us using Gimp since we can only create PNGs.

You can get an extension for gimp that will allow you to save images as .gif, it's under "non-free", and has a warning attached to it, but it works fine

I found out about the transparency problems only after I happened to view my site in IE, a few weeks after it was opened . But then again, the site was designed only for me, and I use Firefox, so I thought "screw it. If you're using IE, you're not good enough for my site", and left it

If only more web designers would do this... I've just finished a whole information system that looks like crap in IE, and users are being good puppies and changing their browser when they get annoyed with the layout. So I'm doing my bit to save the world from IE

ps: anyone seen the "IE7" project?

[haravikk]

Since I don't have any copy of IE for Mac or for PC then all I test in is Safari and Mozilla's Camino which are both good supporters of XHTML