Image Slicing was Re: [oclug]for the mac / linux fans

[Shad Young]

On Mon, 2003-01-13 at 09:43, daniel quinn wrote:
> On January 13, 2003 09:25 am, Pat Gilliland wrote:
> > Brad's discussion of image slicing make sense to me.  Would you please
> > elaborate.
> >
> > Shad Young wrote:
> > > You really have no idea what you're talking about, do you Brad? Do you
> > > just make this stuff up as you go along?
> > >
> > > Shad
> 
> brad is quite right.  it's entirely possible to select a section, copy, and 
> paste it into a new document, compress and save it to your liking.  this is, 
> after all how photoshop 4 worked.  but then macromedia introduced their 
> "fireworks" graphical editor, and while it lacked the powers of photoshop 
> (masking wasn't pretty, and useability in other areas was lacking). it had 
> this really handy tool that let you cut up your image into pieces any size 
> you like so you could compress your web layout any way you like.

As mentioned, my problems with Gimp is its UI and layout. I have no
issues with its capabilities. But I am used to working a certain way,
with tools like a selection tool (shaped, wizard or freehand) that
allows me to select part of an image and drag it onto a free space to
create a new one, or key stroke it into a new selection, or layer...
easy, intuitive and complete. 

I have no doubt Gimp can do everything I need it to, its just very
difficult for me to navigate. When doing web development I often have a
dozen windows open at once; a file manage, a browser of each type, a
text editor or IDE like Quanta open (with maybe six or seven tabbed
files open, maybe a music player, email, IRC..., add Gimp to the mix and
suddenly its overwhelming.  If they at least gave me the option of MDI
it would easy my life a great deal (If it exists somewhere I apologize
in advance, but I have as yet been able to find a setting for that). 

My main point was more that he was talking primarily about bandwidth
issues and not quality or usability in the post I was responding to. He
made statements that seem to ignored some rather basic principals of
client/server interaction (persistence etc.). Your following statements
are entirely correct from my understanding of things, but then again, I
do not profess to know more than the local education system.

Shad

> brad doesn't know what he's talking about when he goes on ranting about how 
> you don't need to cut up an layout to get it on the web and heres why:
> 
> 1.
> to the human eye, the page *does* load faster.  if you're waiting for a page 
> to load, you're much more likely to leave if you're waiting 30seconds for a 
> single image to load.  but if parts of that image load in different areas, 
> the user waits longer 'cause it appears that the site is loading faster.
> 
> 2.
> image compression is diversified for a reason.  images with a small number of 
> "flat" colours (as opposed to gradients) compress better under .gif than 
> under .jpeg whereas jpeg compression is best used for photo-quality or 
> gradient images.  if you have a web layout that employs both, hacking it up 
> into little bits is the best way to go.
> 
> 3.
> this chopping up also allows you to save your compression and dimension 
> settings for each "piece" of your layout.  say your header has 3parts to it, 
> 2jpeg, 1gif compressed.  if you make any changes, no matter how minor, you're 
> looking at having to "select, copy, paste, compress, save" for each of those 
> three... and lets just hope you got the right dimensions for each piece.  
> guides sometimes can get crazy-confusing in layouts that include up to 50 
> different chunks.
> 
> 4.
> there's one more option that i'm sure he forgot, and that's simple menu 
> buttons etc.  each section of a menu (if an image) needs to be cut up into 
> menu elements in order to allow you to attach a link to each menu item.  yes, 
> this can be done with an image map, but then you run into the "big, slow 
> loading image" problem mentioned in #1.
> 
> this is what i do for a living, please don't start commenting on how i don't 
> know what i'm talking about when this is definately my field.
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