Re:

Sorry, Bob, but PNG is *NOT* a proprietary format of Macromedia's. It is, in
fact, Portable Network Graphics, the format created to completely replace
GIFs (MNG (Multiple-image Network Graphics) being the animated version). Go
check it out at the W3C, as they have a whole lot of valuable information
regarding it. The W3C also has information on SVG, the Scalable Vector
Graphics format that is also forthcoming. It would "behoove" any webmaster
to read up on these upcoming formats so they will know what to expect,
rather than dismiss these as strange new formats one or more programs choose
to save their files in.

http://www.w3.org/Graphics/PNG/ => Information regarding PNG
http://www.libpng.org/pub/png/ => Official PNG Info Site
http://www.libpng.org/pub/mng/ => Official MNG Info Site
http://www.w3.org/Graphics/SVG/Overview.htm8 => Info regarding SVG

Now, Jasc Animation Shop uses MNG for its "native" file storage, and Jasc
Trajectory Pro uses SVG for its "native" file storage. Does this make these
two proprietary to these Jasc products? No. Macromedia's products (one or
more) may use PNG for its "native" file storage, but, as I hope I've made
clear here, PNG is NOT a proprietary format, but rather a format all newer
browsers SHOULD support, either natively or with plug-ins. GIFS are going
bye-bye eventually. Read up on all the problems behind them in those links
above, or in any decent book about graphics. One book I can recommend is
"Web Designer's Guide to Graphics: PNG, GIF, & JPEG" by Timothy Webster,
copyright 1997, published by Hayden Books. I point out all the excess info,
such as copyright, to show that PNGs have been around for years! They are
not new (although in relation to GIF and JPG they are), so it really does
surprise me that people in the webdesign business (whether for fun or
profit) do not know of these new formats.

Rather than saying:
>>> It would behoove the webmaster to export the file from Fireworks into a
.gif or Jpg. <<<
it would be more appropriate to have the webmaster create a sniffer so that
browsers that can display PNG get a PNG image, while others get a GIF or JPG
variant. Either way, if the browser can't view PNG, it will display a broken
image icon, not break the browser (at least it shouldn't break the browser).
I would suspect something other than a certain graphics format being the
culprit for browser crashes.

The PNG format is supported by MSIE 5 and above natively. Netscape 6, and
recent versions of Netscape 4.5 and above also seem to support PNG natively,
unless they snuck a plugin download by me at one point. Opera 3 and 4 also
natively support PNGs. I no longer have MSIE 4.x on my system, as we all
know that each version of MSIE completely replaces the previous, and
multiple instances of different versions is pretty difficult without running
multiple OSs, but I believe that PNG was supported in newer 4.x versions,
too. To test a browser, go to the second PNG link above. The logo on the
opening page is a PNG graphic. If you can see it, your browser supports
PNGs.

Have a good day!
Kehvan M. Zydhek




----- Original Message -----
From: "Webguy" <webguy(at)harborside.com>
To: <hwg-techniques(at)hwg.org>
Sent: Monday, June 05, 2000 7:23 AM
Subject: FW:


>
>
>
>
> The reason that your browser crashes is that there is an image in the
upper
> right that is in   Macromedia's proprietary .png format that causes a lot
of
> browser crashers.  It would behoove the webmaster to export the file from
> Fireworks into a .gif or Jpg.
>
> Bob Laurence
> www.RE-data.com
>

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