Re: [Pueblo-Users] Snap poll: PNG pong

[Matthew 'F. D. <fr...@sh...>]

On Mon, 24 Feb 2003, Gavin Lambert wrote:
>At 17:26 19/02/2003 -0500, Maxi Rose wrote:
> >It's hard for me to choose between those two. In all honesty,
>I'm
> >so used to load-on-complete that it doesn't upset me. Yet, what
> >would be nice is when we specify the size of the image in our
> >Pueblo code, I'd like to see space set aside for the image like
> >in HTML, so that text doesn't suddenly jump or jumble to
>scramble
> >out of the way and make room for the pic. This way, a user can
> >go, "Ah... There's a picture there. I just have to wait for it
>to
> >load." To go further and let us have a temporary low-res image
> >to load in its place like you can do, would be nice.
>
>Well, according to both the code and my own tests Pueblo does in
>fact create a placeholder space in the output window.  If you
>specify both of WIDTH and HEIGHT then it will be that size,
>otherwise it will be 8x8 pixels.  Presently only an empty space is
>left -- there is no border or anything else visible until the
>image loads.
>
>In fact, that is the only function of the WIDTH and HEIGHT
>attributes, since Pueblo performs no image scaling, and always
>displays images at their proper dimensions regardless of the WIDTH
>and HEIGHT specified.  I could change this if people think that
>it's a bug... though I'd rather not, since there are caching
>issues involved too -- in a single Pueblo session, all images that
>have the EXACT same URL are linked together so that they are all
>the same size and will animate simultaneously.  Saves memory and
>download time.

Yes, please correct this behavior if possible!

For one thing, it would be nice to have images appear at their correct size
if a WIDTH and HEIGHT isn't specified. It's often overlooked or sometimes
people don't know both the width and height of an external image link. 8x8
is way too small for a default image size if only one is set.

As an addendum to this, I don't think that Pueblo currently supports a
percentage width or height, and specifying one will cause the image to
default to 8x8, which is not ideal (I could be wrong about this. It's been a
while since I tested this in Pueblo.). It would be great if I could have a
custom graphic divider that I can set to a percentage width, and have it
work if the user resizes their window as in a browser. This may be related
to the caching issue mentioned, though.

As for all instances of the same image being the same size, while I
understand why this was done for caching and memory reasons, I hope that it
can be corrected. Computers nowadays have more memory and processor power,
so hopefully it won't interfere. Perhaps cache all instances of an image
with not only the same URL, but the same WIDTH and HEIGHT attributes set.
This way, some caching will occur, but I can have a standard graphic that I
can resize as necessary depending on the world parameters, without having to
have multiple separate versions of the image based on size alone, as I do
now. Just my thoughts.

>In any case, I've added a more visible placeholder (and even made
>it change appearance to indicate a broken or otherwise
>undisplayable image) to the development code, so you'll see that
>in action in the next release :)

Great! Thank you. I look forward to seeing that.

Sincerely,
Matt
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Matthew Duhan         fr...@sh...          http://www.fringenet.net
When I want my opinions I'll ask me for them.
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