User talk:Joe Beaudoin Jr.

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Uploading images as transparent .PNG's

Real quick, I never received an answer to my question regarding the transparent PNG's... I know your original answer was that Internet Explorer 6 has problems displaying them properly, a fact I also know to be true, but I have tested the graphic I uploaded for the Daru Mozu in several popular browsers: Internet Explorer 7, Mozilla Firefox, Safari, Opera and Camino. All of these browsers display the graphic just fine. I think the large majority of the BSG Wiki's target crowd would be on such browsers as well. Unfortunately, as of April 08 28.9% of internet users are still browsing via IE6 according to this source. This is however a large reduction of IE6 users from early 06 where IE6 accounted for approx 60% of all internet browsing. Personally, I think it's safe to say that the users of this site are part of the 70% of internet users who have swapped IE6 for a better browser. Besides, people with IE6 can still view the image itself, just not the transparent background... Which is essentially the same look on the website right now anyways: the image with a solid background (in many cases at least). At worst, this transition would mean a considerable aesthetic increase for people using modern browsers and a slight decrease in aesthetics for people using older browsers (in most cases at least). However, I don't think anyone will be hurt by the .PNG's because everyone is using a modern browser. I won't make mention of this topic anymore if the same answer still stands, although I do think it deserves additional consideration given how sweet the Daru Mozu graphic looks!

Thanks! --Galjamspe 02:36, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

My only main objections to going PNG:

1. Programs that save to the PNG format are notorious for loading up PNGs with worthless data that increases the file size, thus increasing bandwidth and site download times; this can be avoided using certain programs, or tweaking certain settings, but if you're of the "click, click, click" mentality then this goes completely out the window. (In particular when we get slammed during first run episodes.) It is simply easier for us to use JPGs for all of our images due to the file size and bandwidth issues.
2. Secondly, IE 7 still does not have complete and full support of the PNG format; like everything else Microsoft produces, it is... incompetently produced, for want of mature terminology. Checking our recent statistics via our web server, I see that 45% of our audience still uses IE: 13% use IE6, 32% use IE7.

Regardless to say, because of those two reasons, I am wholly against full scale implementation of the PNG format on the wiki. I'll reevaluate this stance when these errors have been rectified, particularly on the IE 7 level. -- Joe Beaudoin ^{So say we all - Donate - Battlestar Pegasus} 02:55, 16 May 2008 (UTC)