[ Article crossposted from comp.infosystems.www.announce ]
[ Posted on 30 Jan 1995 16:43:16 -0800 ]
[NOTE: This document is also available on the World-Wide Web at
<URL:http://dragon.jpl.nasa.gov/~adam/transparent.html>.]
Before you ask about transparentizing and interlacing GIF's, please
point yourself at the WWW FAQ, which covers these topics in Section
5.7.7. The URL is:
<URL:http://sunsite.unc.edu/boutell/faq/www_faq.html>
Come to think of it, I'm guessing that info is also contained in FAQs
for the graphics newsgroups, but this one I know for sure. The advantage
to this one is that it has hyperlinks to all the relevant pages and
tools for the various platforms.
Where, you may ask, could you get any other FAQs, if you so desired? You
could try FTP to:
<URL:ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet-by-hierarchy>
<URL:ftp://grasp.insa-lyon.fr/pub/faq-by-newsgroup>
which contain archives by newsgroup of every FAQ there is (I think).
Pretty impressive, no? For heaven's sake, don't overload them.
The WWW FAQ leaves out one worthy item: In Windows, the program LviewPro 1A
can save GIFs as interlaced and as GIF89a format with the background color
transparent (and it's a full-featured graphics manipulation program).
Check it out at your favorite SIMTEL mirror FTP site:
<URL:ftp://oak.oakland.edu/SimTel/msdos>
<URL:ftp://wuarchive.wustl.edu/systems/ibmpc/msdos>
<URL:ftp://archive.orst.edu/pub/mirrors/simtel/msdos>
Also for Windows (or DOS), I highly recommend Alchemy Mindworks' Graphics
Workshop, though I can't recall if it does transparent/interlaced stuff or
not. They have a new program called GIF Construction Set for Windows, which
does do transparent (though the docs don't mention interlaced, so I don't
know about that). Their URL is:
<URL:http://uunorth.north.net:8000/alchemy/html/alchemy.html>
And finally, you all might want to check out the Graphics Archive Web site,
which is muy bueno for all kinds of graphics stuff:
<URL:http://www.best.com/~bryanw/index.html>
I'm going to post this regularly for a while, unless screaming hordes
of enraged net surfers bombard my mailbox with "Stop posting that transparent/
interlaced GIF crap, you dweeb" messages, and then only if the number of
said messages exceeds the number of people posting to request info on
transparent and interlaced GIFs. The only reason I'm doing this is because
the regular postings of the FAQ don't seem to be frequent enough to cut
down on this AMFAQ (Apparently Most FAQ).
Thank you, and good night.
Adam Bernstein Jet Propulsion Lab
Avionic Equipment Section, MS 198-235
Optical Tracking Group 4800 Oak Grove Dr.
http://dragon.jpl.nasa.gov/~adam/ Pasadena, CA 91109
adam at dragon.jpl.nasa.gov Phone: 818 354-9784
or adam.c.bernstein at jpl.nasa.gov FAX: 818 393-6105
