Digital Comic Museum

General Category => Comic Related Discussion => Topic started by: John C on October 15, 2012, 03:49:52 PM

Title: Nemo in Googleland
Post by: John C on October 15, 2012, 03:49:52 PM
For those of you like myself who don't actually visit the Google homepage, this evening (15 October) might be a not-so-bad time to check it out.
Title: Re: Nemo in Googleland
Post by: Yoc on October 15, 2012, 05:49:12 PM
Thanks John.
Interesting, it's an animated PNG file.  I wasn't aware you could animate those.
Title: Re: Nemo in Googleland
Post by: John C on October 16, 2012, 03:08:36 PM
Ah.  I didn't even check that, and it's the first I've heard of such a beast, too.  And checking on that, yeah, APNG is a thing, though it's not sanctioned by the PNG standards people and support is spotty.  So if you looked with Internet Explorer, Safari, or Chrome (oddly) without the right plug-in, I apologize for the confusion.

(I assumed it was typical dynamic web stuff, like Google Maps.  Go figure.  Or maybe it did work for you, since the Wikipedia page says that there's a standard library to "fake" an APNG for browsers that don't support it.)

Oh!  That explains the animated site icons I've seen...
Title: Re: Nemo in Googleland
Post by: Yoc on October 16, 2012, 06:49:12 PM
Considering we use an animated GIF file for our banner I wonder what the advantages to a PNG file would be?
Title: Re: Nemo in Googleland
Post by: John C on October 17, 2012, 05:08:01 AM
Grand scheme, probably nothing.  Functionally, they look the same, just frames joined into a quasi-movie.  PNG does have compression, though, so one can cram more frames into the same size file, for what that's worth.

But also don't forget the potential downside, that only Firefox and Opera have in-built support.
Title: Re: Nemo in Googleland
Post by: Yoc on October 17, 2012, 11:19:42 AM
Right, and that's the end of that idea.  Staying with GIF...
Title: Re: Nemo in Googleland
Post by: JonTheScanner on October 20, 2012, 12:31:37 PM
My recollection is that GIF files are limited in the number of colors (256 I think). PNG are essentially unlimited as far as the human eye interacting with the computer screen goes.