TechWhirl (TECHWR-L) is a resource for technical writing and technical communications professionals of all experience levels and in all industries to share their experiences and acquire information.
For two decades, technical communicators have turned to TechWhirl to ask and answer questions about the always-changing world of technical communications, such as tools, skills, career paths, methodologies, and emerging industries. The TechWhirl Archives and magazine, created for, by and about technical writers, offer a wealth of knowledge to everyone with an interest in any aspect of technical communications.
Subject:Re: Resizing GIFs for HTML? From:"Walker, Arlen P" <Arlen -dot- P -dot- Walker -at- JCI -dot- COM> Date:Fri, 6 Mar 1998 13:30:12 -0600
First off, it's impossible to do this for
hundreds of images in an HTML document.
Wouldn't it just take a little more thought? After all, the images in a doc
are also kept in an array, so couldn't this be made more generic by
accessing the image via an index, which you can arrange to pass to it (or
perhaps enable it to recognize automatically)?
Second, it uses VBScript, something that Netscape isn't really happy
with and older browsers can't handle.
And, more to the point, it *requires* VBScript, as the height and width
properties in JavaScript are read-only.
There isn't any comparable vector display for HTML
at all, so the workaround isn't really practical unless you can
tolerate a great deal of display degradation.
Right (though I understand vector graphics are coming for HTML if it isn't
replaced by XML before then). A better workaround would be a two-file
approach. One image for the document, and the full image stored in a
viewable format, accessed by clicking on the one in the doc.
Both HTML and PDF files have their place. Personally, if I had to fire up
Netscape or IE every time I wanted to view a doc, I'd scream. They've gone
the way of all software, and turned into bloated monstrosities. Acrobat
sits on about a quarter of the disc space of either of the two 4.x
browsers, uses half the RAM, and is significantly faster.
Also, there are no security exploits for Acrobat. And it's never crashed on
me. The browser boys can't make either claim.
As for putting docs up on everybody's intranet: Fine, as long as I'm not
held responsible for them in any way. But we all know that won't be the
case. Every wanna-be on the customer's site will want to tweak the
documents, and I think I can guarantee the results will not be pretty.
Have fun,
Arlen
Chief Managing Director In Charge, Department of Redundancy Department
DNRC 224
Arlen -dot- P -dot- Walker -at- JCI -dot- Com
----------------------------------------------
In God we trust; all others must provide data.
----------------------------------------------
Opinions expressed are mine and mine alone.
If JCI had an opinion on this, they'd hire someone else to deliver it.