3 ms·

This article makes me feel old, having lived through a time where you avoided using PNGs on the web because IE6 didn't support the transparency

by coev 4y ago

kijin 4y ago
IE6 as well as some of the later versions also got the gamma wrong, so even if you used a non-transparent PNG the colors would be subtly different from the surrounding CSS colors.
plusminusplus 4y ago
A workaround introduced me to the CSS `filter` property. (Some monster value starting with progid:DXImageTransform...). Crazy considering how much I use the property now.
masklinn 4y ago
> you avoided using PNGs on the web because IE6 didn't support the transparency Nonsense. The only reason to avoid PNG was IE’s gamma issues: IE6 did not support progressive transparency, so at worst you had full-color gifs.
- seba_dos1 4y ago
  Absolutely not. Not supporting more than 1-bit alpha was a huge reason to avoid doing anything serious with PNGs if you cared about IE6; gamma was like a cherry on top. You could actually make it work with non-standard DirectX filters, but it came with its own set of drawbacks and wasn't always a viable option.
  - masklinn 4y ago
    > Absolutely not. Not supporting more than 1-bit alpha was a huge reason to avoid doing anything serious with PNGs if you cared about IE6 That makes absolutely no sense, because there was no other format which could do progressive transparency on IE, and short of animation palletised PNG is superior to GIF. And for non-photographic full-color, PNG is generally much better than JPEG. So avoiding PNG just gave you larger files or worse results for no gain.
    - seba_dos1 4y ago
      Your options weren't "either use PNG or some other format", but rather "either ignore IE and design things that can use 8-bit alpha thanks to PNG, or don't consider using possibilities PNG could give you when designing things at all". So yes, you did use PNGs in some areas (illustrations etc.), but anything that would make you think "I'd have to use PNG to do that" meant "no-go because of IE". Which generally means avoiding PNGs. When you add gamma issues on top of that, it was pretty rare to ever use PNGs for web designs if you cared about IE6.

This article makes me feel old, having lived through a time where you avoided using PNGs on the web because IE6 didn't support the transparency

by coev 4y ago

This article makes me feel old, having lived through a time where you avoided using PNGs on the web because IE6 didn't support the transparency

kijin 4y ago

IE6 as well as some of the later versions also got the gamma wrong, so even if you used a non-transparent PNG the colors would be subtly different from the surrounding CSS colors.

plusminusplus 4y ago

A workaround introduced me to the CSS `filter` property. (Some monster value starting with progid:DXImageTransform...). Crazy considering how much I use the property now.

masklinn 4y ago

> you avoided using PNGs on the web because IE6 didn't support the transparency Nonsense. The only reason to avoid PNG was IE’s gamma issues: IE6 did not support progressive transparency, so at worst you had full-color gifs.

seba_dos1 4y ago
Absolutely not. Not supporting more than 1-bit alpha was a huge reason to avoid doing anything serious with PNGs if you cared about IE6; gamma was like a cherry on top. You could actually make it work with non-standard DirectX filters, but it came with its own set of drawbacks and wasn't always a viable option.
- masklinn 4y ago
  > Absolutely not. Not supporting more than 1-bit alpha was a huge reason to avoid doing anything serious with PNGs if you cared about IE6 That makes absolutely no sense, because there was no other format which could do progressive transparency on IE, and short of animation palletised PNG is superior to GIF. And for non-photographic full-color, PNG is generally much better than JPEG. So avoiding PNG just gave you larger files or worse results for no gain.
  - seba_dos1 4y ago
    Your options weren't "either use PNG or some other format", but rather "either ignore IE and design things that can use 8-bit alpha thanks to PNG, or don't consider using possibilities PNG could give you when designing things at all". So yes, you did use PNGs in some areas (illustrations etc.), but anything that would make you think "I'd have to use PNG to do that" meant "no-go because of IE". Which generally means avoiding PNGs. When you add gamma issues on top of that, it was pretty rare to ever use PNGs for web designs if you cared about IE6.