SW List Listserve cannot accept PNG format....

[Valerie Sutton]

SignWriting List
October 2, 2003

Dear SW List, Stuart, Sandy...
Thanks for your points about the .PNG format, which I believe was
developped by MacroMedia, which has also developed such famous programs
as FLASH, Director, Freehand, Dreamweaver, Fontographer and
others...PNG is an excellent new format...

BUT...we have a problem with .PNG...our ListServe software, that runs
this SW List, from a computer in Canada that is donating the service to
us....their Listserve software has problems with the .PNG format...If
you attach a PNG to an email message and then send it to the
SignWriting List, sometimes it will come in as "garbage" and it will
bounce from the SignWriting List, or create a mile of garbage inside
people's email messages...so...only GIF and JPEG work for the
SignWriting List postings...and BMP has the same problem on the SW
List...it will work "partially" but not always...so please stick to
GIFs and JPEGs ...and JPEGs are ok...if there is some "fuzz" it doesn't
matter for postings on email...which are not works of art anyway -
smile... they are just used for discussing SignSpelling issues etc...

Now...to finish...I was only talking about "software development"
regarding the legal issues with GIFs...the users have NO problems and
can use it freely...it is only a "software development" issue, and
since CompuServe gives us another "hoop to jump over", it was just
harder for us to build the GIF format into SignWriter DOS...so instead
we chose BMP because it was the easiest for us...but that does not mean
that any user has to worry about using the GIF format from Photoshop or
other programs...it is only the problem of finding software that CAN
create GIFs...there are not as many as JPEGs, which is totally open to
software developpers, I believe...I hope that GIF will become public
domain someday, because it is an excellent format which we obviously
all agree with...

Val ;-)

--------------------------

On Thursday, October 2, 2003, at 09:46 AM, Sandy Fleming wrote:
> I think the only reason .png isn't popular is that not all browsers
> support
> it - and I suppose also because people are just used to .gifs. Things
> should
> get better as software advances, however.
>
> But .pngs would be a good alternative to .gifs as long as it doesn't
> give
> anyone problems due to having to use software that doesn't "know" the
> format.
>
> As I understand it, it's OK to just convert to .gifs using, say,
> Photoshop
> or Paint Shop Pro, like we're doing, since these programs were written
> using
> the appropriate licenses. It's only when you're actually writing your
> own
> software to create .gifs that you have to get a license (which
> explains the
> problem with SWDOS).
>
> Sandy
>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: SignWriting List [mailto:SW-L at ADMIN.HUMBERC.ON.CA]On Behalf Of
>> Valerie Sutton
>> Sent: 02 October 2003 16:56
>> To: SW-L at ADMIN.HUMBERC.ON.CA
>> Subject: Re: About .jpg
>>
>>
>> SignWriting List
>> October 2, 2003
>>
>> Sandy Fleming wrote:
>>> So use .gif for SignWriting!  :)
>>
>> Dear SW List, and Sandy and Nana -
>> Thank you, Sandy, for helping everyone with the JPEG and GIF
>> issues...wonderful to have help!
>>
>> I agree, of course, that when it comes to small SignWriting diagrams,
>> that GIF is best, for me at least. The problem is that some software
>> does not include a way to create GIFs, since CompuServe, which created
>> the GIF format, has had some restrictions on software developpers...it
>> is a matter of us working it out with them...and not all graphics
>> programs have done that...so for example, MicroSoft Paint does not
>> always have a way to create a GIF...it depends on the version you have
>> of that software etc...meanwhile JPEGs are always available, so it may
>> be that Nana doesn't have the capability to create a GIF?...
>>
>> And that is ok...since both JPEGs and GIFs work fine, when posting to
>> the SW List...
>>
>> Years ago, when we were developing the EXPORT feature in SignWriter,
>> we
>> wanted to create an EXPORT to GIF from SignWriter, but there were some
>> legal restrictions from CompuServe. But there were none for exporting
>> to BMP...so we chose the later, since as a small, non-profit
>> organization, it was simply easier for us...but it is my hope that
>> someday, at least from SignWriter Java, we can add a feature for
>> exporting to GIF, JPEG and a variety of other formats...directly from
>> SignWriter.
>>
>> Val ;-)
>>
>