Maybe a version with standard vBulletin style matting?

cheat-master30 · 12-28-2009, 06:20 PM

Because I'm not sure most websites have whatever modification adds a white background (or a fixed background in general) to the postbit, and that mod really works best only on the legacy style postbit. Okay, transparent would be best of all in my opinion, but still, I'm not sure how well the white matted ones would work on my site's showthread pages.

shelley · 12-28-2009, 06:55 PM

The matting or to be precise to eliminate it would result in me designing a mood manager pack which would consist of a 100% .png pack. There are a few problems with this, .png doesn't support animation, and some moods are best conveyed using animation. I'm not discounting this suggestion because the project is still in construction and I'll embrace, keep an open mind on what methods, formats, sizes etc and many other factors that will surpass my original mood icon will work best here.

I very much doubt that I will create to separate packs, the whole project is far to big (with other obligations i have here) to support an array of packs. That said, .png and the fact that it sits on any background prity much takes care of itself. I'll see nearer the time when it comes to the design stage. With an all transparent mood icon pack the support for me would be minimal no existent though the design stage and the suggestions which are coming in will be that much more difficult.

I'll look into it more cheatmaster. Thanks for the suggestion.

cheat-master30 · 12-28-2009, 07:06 PM

No problem. Maybe it'll be easier when that animated PNG file format is actually supported by more browsers?

shelley · 12-28-2009, 07:16 PM

.MNG is the animated solution. Have you seen some animations in .mng? They look absolutely amazing. The trouble is the format has been around for years but the web/software companies and users are not supporting it the way it deserves.

Personally, I'd like the .mpng format to be the new standard that replaces .gif but I've been saying for the past 5 years to another person that people are not willing to make the change over and we are stuck with an inferior format. Shame really. I'll need to post some examples if you haven't seen the comparisons.

shelley · 12-28-2009, 09:58 PM

Some info about the apng project that you might find usefull. Taken from wiki but this is information I already knew and know why Apng will never be the standard.

Quote:

APNG

The Animated Portable Network Graphics (APNG) file format is an unofficial extension to the Portable Network Graphics (PNG) specification. It allows for animated PNG files that work similarly to animated GIF files, while supporting 24-bit images and 8-bit transparency not available for GIFs. It also retains backward compatibility with non-animated PNG files.
The first frame of an APNG file is stored as a normal PNG stream, and so most old PNG decoders will be able to display the first frame of an APNG file. The frame speed data and extra animation frames are stored in extra chunks (as provided for by the original PNG specification).
APNG competes with Multiple-image Network Graphics (MNG), a powerful format for bitmapped animations created by the same team as PNG. APNG's advantage is the smaller library size and compatibility with older PNG implementations.

History

The APNG specification was created in 2004 by Stuart Parmenter and Vladimir Vukicevic of the Mozilla Corporation. APNG support was added to the ubiquitous libpng by a Seneca College student during the Google Summer of Code in 2006. Mozilla Firefox added support for APNG in Firefox 3 trunk builds on March 23, 2007.[1] Iceweasel 3 does not support APNG[2].
The PNG group officially rejected APNG as an official extension on April 20, 2007.[3] There have been several subsequent proposals for a simple animated graphics format based on PNG using several different approaches.[4] Among the maintainers of the PNG and MNG formats, APNG was not received well for several reasons. MNG provides all the features APNG provides, but is not supported at all by PNG-only decoders. APNG uses a technically feasible solution for storing any frames except the first, but the majority of the PNG group thinks this conflicts with the purpose of the PNG format – which is to store a single image. APNG would be compatible to this vision with alterations to its signature and intended MIME type, but these would break the desired backwards compatibility.
In 2008 WorldDMB adopted APNG as a backward compatible extension to enable animation as part of the MOT SlideShow user application for Digital Radio. "APNG 1.0 Specification - Animated Portable Network Graphics" is included as normative Annex A in the ETSI standard TS 101 499 V2.2.1 (2008-07).
Mozilla's role in extending the PNG format to APNG echoes Netscape's much earlier role in popularizing animated GIFs.

Application Support

mage processing applications which support APNG:

KSquirrel as of version 0.7.2 (October 3, 2007)[5]
XnView as of version 1.92 (December 19, 2007)[6]
Gamani GIF Movie Gear as of version 4.2 (March 2008)[7]
ImageJ as of version 1.41g (July 3, 2008)[8]
Imagine as of version 1.0.4 (November 14, 2008)[9]

Web browsers which support APNG:

Mozilla Firefox as of version 3 (June 17, 2008)[10][11]
(along with SeaMonkey and other Gecko-based applications)
Opera as of version 9.5 (September 17, 2008)[12]

Web browsers which do not support APNG:

Internet Explorer previous to version 8.0.7100.0 (experimental)[13]
Safari and other WebKit-based browsers such as Google Chrome

cheat-master30 · 12-28-2009, 10:46 PM

At least there are hopes in the future that Internet Explorer will support the standard, so that does bring hope that it may become a supported file format in the future. But still, are animated moods needed?

shelley · 12-28-2009, 11:16 PM

But the thing is it's not the standard. And, I doubt that it ever will be the standard. PNG rejected it and chrome doesn't support it and we can only hope IE will embrace it though I wouldn't hold out much hope. Personally I would have preferred the mpng format to replace gif but it hasn't happened in all those years and I don't think it will happen anytime soon.

We can only hope though.

With regards to animated moods. I guess we don't really need some to be animated but I put this down to personal preference. Some people would indeed prefer a static set whilst others would like animated variants in some of the moods.

I'll look into it more but all the static moods will be png anyway.

FullMetalBabe · 12-29-2009, 12:22 AM

Pretty sad, I thought it was fantastic to have an alpha transparency animation. *Hopes future photoshop version allows you to animate PNG's*

shelley · 12-29-2009, 02:20 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by FullMetalBabe

Pretty sad, I thought it was fantastic to have an alpha transparency animation. *Hopes future photoshop version allows you to animate PNG's*

I've had my hopes up for years. But even if adobe embraces the format we still need developers to embrace and support it and more importantly the browsers (which 2 of the most popular browsers don't support .apng).

I just can't see it happening. Though I do ask myself this question often. How much longer do we persist in settling for a gif format for our animated solution? Surely it can't go on forever. I need to design a shrug emot.

Alex · 12-29-2009, 02:30 AM

I've never even heard of animated PNG. Well, Wayne Luke made a long post about it once, but like most of his long posts, it's like reading a Tolken novel (Sorry, Wayne.

).

If the matting color is the issue, I'm sure such a minor adjustment like that can be had for a fee. I had to export some image for someone I made a while back and their site's color didn't like the white or black matte, so I just sampled the color from their background and used that as the matte filler.

12-28-2009, 06:20 PM	#1
cheat-master30 Junior Member Join Date: Dec 2009 Posts: 23 Gender: My Mood:	Maybe a version with standard vBulletin style matting? Because I'm not sure most websites have whatever modification adds a white background (or a fixed background in general) to the postbit, and that mod really works best only on the legacy style postbit. Okay, transparent would be best of all in my opinion, but still, I'm not sure how well the white matted ones would work on my site's showthread pages.

12-28-2009, 06:55 PM	#2
shelley Founder Join Date: Jan 2009 Location: United Kingdom Posts: 247 Gender:	The matting or to be precise to eliminate it would result in me designing a mood manager pack which would consist of a 100% .png pack. There are a few problems with this, .png doesn't support animation, and some moods are best conveyed using animation. I'm not discounting this suggestion because the project is still in construction and I'll embrace, keep an open mind on what methods, formats, sizes etc and many other factors that will surpass my original mood icon will work best here. I very much doubt that I will create to separate packs, the whole project is far to big (with other obligations i have here) to support an array of packs. That said, .png and the fact that it sits on any background prity much takes care of itself. I'll see nearer the time when it comes to the design stage. With an all transparent mood icon pack the support for me would be minimal no existent though the design stage and the suggestions which are coming in will be that much more difficult. I'll look into it more cheatmaster. Thanks for the suggestion. Follow me on Twitter \| Facebook \| My DeviantART

12-28-2009, 07:16 PM	#4
shelley Founder Join Date: Jan 2009 Location: United Kingdom Posts: 247 Gender:	.MNG is the animated solution. Have you seen some animations in .mng? They look absolutely amazing. The trouble is the format has been around for years but the web/software companies and users are not supporting it the way it deserves. Personally, I'd like the .mpng format to be the new standard that replaces .gif but I've been saying for the past 5 years to another person that people are not willing to make the change over and we are stuck with an inferior format. Shame really. I'll need to post some examples if you haven't seen the comparisons. Follow me on Twitter \| Facebook \| My DeviantART

12-28-2009, 11:16 PM	#7
shelley Founder Join Date: Jan 2009 Location: United Kingdom Posts: 247 Gender:	But the thing is it's not the standard. And, I doubt that it ever will be the standard. PNG rejected it and chrome doesn't support it and we can only hope IE will embrace it though I wouldn't hold out much hope. Personally I would have preferred the mpng format to replace gif but it hasn't happened in all those years and I don't think it will happen anytime soon. We can only hope though. With regards to animated moods. I guess we don't really need some to be animated but I put this down to personal preference. Some people would indeed prefer a static set whilst others would like animated variants in some of the moods. I'll look into it more but all the static moods will be png anyway. Follow me on Twitter \| Facebook \| My DeviantART

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12-28-2009, 07:06 PM	#3
cheat-master30 Junior Member Join Date: Dec 2009 Posts: 23 Gender: My Mood:	No problem. Maybe it'll be easier when that animated PNG file format is actually supported by more browsers?

12-28-2009, 10:46 PM	#6
cheat-master30 Junior Member Join Date: Dec 2009 Posts: 23 Gender: My Mood:	At least there are hopes in the future that Internet Explorer will support the standard, so that does bring hope that it may become a supported file format in the future. But still, are animated moods needed?

12-29-2009, 12:22 AM	#8
FullMetalBabe Member Join Date: Aug 2009 Location: Carolina, PR Posts: 72 Gender: My Mood:	Pretty sad, I thought it was fantastic to have an alpha transparency animation. Hopes future photoshop version allows you to animate PNG's

12-29-2009, 02:30 AM	#10
Alex Member Join Date: Dec 2009 Posts: 98 Gender: My Mood:	I've never even heard of animated PNG. Well, Wayne Luke made a long post about it once, but like most of his long posts, it's like reading a Tolken novel (Sorry, Wayne. ). If the matting color is the issue, I'm sure such a minor adjustment like that can be had for a fee. I had to export some image for someone I made a while back and their site's color didn't like the white or black matte, so I just sampled the color from their background and used that as the matte filler.