About .gif and .png

[Daniel Noelpp]

I have been away in Passugg and when I returned I see
that a lot has been said about graphics and programs.

I have two small comments about this subject.

..png and .gif are both very fine. There was a patent with
gifs, so for many people gifs weren't an option. But this
patent ran out spring this year and gifs are free to use
now. Why use .png then? png has a better support for
transparency than gifs. But we don't need transparency
(and Internet Explorer doesn't support transparency with
png or not very well -- sue Microsoft).

In a summary, both work very well but gifs are more wide
spread and the license issue is gone.

For image format conversions I use the free program
Irfanview under Windows (for Apple I have still to look
for a program I like). http://www.irfanview.com.
It is totally free (no ads). Usually I make a screen
snapshot and paste it directly into Irfanview and
save it as the format I choose.

FYI (for your information).

Cheers
Daniel

> 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?...