[Typo3-dev] Few days left until patent on LZW algorithm expires

[Thomas Murphy]

Hello,

Sven Wilhelm wrote:

> as the german IT-News service heise.de [1] publishs, the patent on the 
> LZW algorithm expires completely in a few days.

I read this too, ... and it was about time...

> Now a full-featured gif is possible.

Yes it is, but I was wondering, why so many people are still interested 
in gif, because png is IMO much more powerful.
I don't want to start a "png-jeah-gif-boo"-thread, but I've worked on 
PNG alpha channel for a while now and I'm really impressed by it.
The only drawback was: the Internet Explorer was unable to render alpha 
channel without a special MS-filter loaded.

I then found a solution to this problem, a small Javascript, that 
refreshed all pngs with this filter - but it wasn't this efficient, 
because it was triggered by an onload event, this caused the pictures to 
"blink" the time the filter needs to load.
But now i found a better solution: A php-based alpha-fix, which I'm 
going to integrate in the new version of my extension. It basically 
replaces all PNG's with transparent-dummy images and makes the replace 
with the alpha-PNG's after this filter is in effect... and it works with 
javascript disabled! Only the ActiveX filters have to be enabled (it's 
the default setting) - no, it's the activeX-download thing or something.
Doesn't make IE any more unsecure then it already is.

So with this fix, there should be the possibilty to generate 
alpha-transparent GMENU's (nicetext on transparent background) and 
transparent images without "pixeled"-borders, but rather smooth edges. 
(With div-layers someone could even batch several alpha-layers).

And of course it's 24bit after all...

bye,
Murphy