[PLUG] Web Site Display Issues Resolved

[Rich Shepard]

   Although I cannot view my web site in IE, I believe that the header images
being displayed as rectangles instead of ellipses has been resolved. The help
came from Norway on a CSS discussion mail list. On the slim chance that there
are other folks here as naive as I was about graphic formats and how they're
displayed by various web browsers, I'll share what I learned.

   I never knew that transparency was not an all-or-nothing state (except in
politics, of course), but it isn't. With .jpg and RGB color .png images, the
transparency is dithered. IE can't handle this so it ignores the transparency
bits and displays the images as rectangles.

   Both .gif and 8-bit (indexed) .png images have transparency as a single, on
or off bit. IE apparently knows how to interpret the single bit so the images
(ellipses, in my case) display correctly. The .gif, of course, has jagged
edges to the curved lines, and it will also reduce colors to 4. I'm not sure
how to use The GIMP to produce 8-bit, 16-color .png files. I'm sure it's in
the color convert dialog box, but I still have to learn just how to do this.
Almost certainly, ImageMagick can do this, but 'identify' doesn't tell me
what I need to know about color depth and I don't know what component tool
will do the conversion properly.

   Anyway, I was sent transformed copies of the two problem images, and I've
put those up on the production web server. I hope that resolves the issue and
that folks using IE can see the site as I designed it and focus on the
content.

   FWIW, I'm pickled tink that a couple of folks on the CSS discussion list
told me that they think the site layout is very well done, particularly in
strict compliance with xhtml-1.0 and css-2.0. As an amateur such response is
nice. But credit where it's due: I was given very good, practical advice from
a denizen of this list with a profitable web-based business. Thanks, RP.

Rich

-- 
Richard B. Shepard, Ph.D.             |  The Environmental Permitting
Applied Ecosystem Services, Inc.(TM)  |          Accelerator
<http://www.appl-ecosys.com>     Voice: 503-667-4517      Fax: 503-667-8863