Peter_Pan
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Forum: Fixing WordPress
In reply to: Gif Transparencies not transparenttim— As it turned out, my particular hosting company does let me switch to newer (or older) versions of PHP, and doing so did fix the problem. But you’re quite correct noting the unwillingness to support. And while I wouldn’t expect the authors or coders to try to actually write a workaround for a flaw in a dated PHP Gd library, I don’t think building in an alert when a version of GD known to cause issues will likely be a headache to the user. The refusal to consider THAT is very telling. There were some other workarounds that gave me reasonable success involving plugins and such. And if you’re really sneaky, you can replace the badly created images for the other sizes with identically named filenames, of images you prepare and resize yourself, using them as a guide.
Forum: Fixing WordPress
In reply to: Gif Transparencies not transparentwpismypuppet: You have to understand that former “client side only coders” like myself never had to be concerned with PHP issues, and your simple solution of upgrading to the latest PHP was something that for all the length of this thread, I had to discover on my own I could easily do. Going back to the beginning, I simply raised an issue I didn’t understand, having seen similar complaints in the forums. For several messages there was no help actually addressing the problem, until someone (wpismypuppet I think) mentioned the “GD” problem, and suggested I install ImageMagick. It was a pure accident I discovered the flaw in my PHP GD library was already corrected in a newer version, which I had the ability to upgrade through my host’s Cpanel. So now looking back, I was just offering some reasonable warnings for others and possible fixes.
You said it didn’t affect 98% of users? Well according to http://en.wordpress.com/stats/, 2% would still be well over a million people. So if simple things like warning a user when an old version of PHP being used on a GIF , or “falling back” to never processing the raw unsized image are not worth the effort for that 2%, that’s your opinion. Trust me, if I had a million customers on Win 3.11, I’d address it. To believe that the GIFs or old browsers are irrelevant because they are obsolete, and that users running into the problem are not even worth an automatic warning, that’s simply wrong. Insult me if you want, but we simply have different philosophies about coding in ever improving support for problems.
Thanks Pioneer. This is getting off the topic, but I say GIF animations are still very useful, even beyond their entertainment aspect, and apparently still more highly cross-browser compatible than PNGs. I’ve never seen a problem with any browser rendering a GIF, but apparently PNG transparencies still don’t render correctly in some browser versions just a few years old. And besides browsers, many email programs never get upgraded by home users, and you’d be amazed how many email programs still render a PNG graphics as a broken image.
I agree that looking for newer and better graphic formats when composing or acquiring new graphics is a good idea, and your point is very well taken about the riskiness of putting text in a GIF. As you can see, I’m just a person concerned, maybe overly so, with backward compatibility. Media incompatibilities will always be a headache, with plenty of bigger problems than GIFs. I have some sites going on 13 years old that still render fine, but for media… OUCH! Every couple of years I have to go back and address all the new video or audio incompatibilities. Last time it was when FLASH was supposedly going to become universal. Oh well!!! So I’m glad for HTML-5, but jhave a lot of work to do to implement all the file conversions. And I can only hope SOMEDAY all browsers will natively handle a few sound and video formats as well as they all now support GIFs! 🙂
Forum: Fixing WordPress
In reply to: Gif Transparencies not transparentwpismypuppet and WPRanger: I do understand this now, and thanks. But… its still odd that this pGD problem affects the original images though, which do not need to be re-sized by GD (more on that below). For me and for now, I’m wondering (and hoping) that if I ever use any other CMS systems that rely on the GD library in the future, I can coax them into using this Imagick too. Or better yet… maybe the PHP bug has been fixed. I was configured for 5.2, and now have set 5.4 for all my hosted domains. But it was set to 5.2 because I’ve had this hosting company for at least 1/2 dozen years, and having never used PHP before, never had cause or reason to change it.
Now regarding wordpress not being at fault, technically you are right. I see that now. But I think that taking that tact misses a good opportunity to improve the WP experience. I’ve never used PHP before, and still build of simple and functional sites with just HTML, CSS, and Javascript. I imagine that a lot of people in my category come to the WP table with equally shallow knowledge of PHP. In fact, since WP is touted as a product for non web-tech savey folks to use, I’ll bet a huge number of WP users don’t have a clue what PHP is.
Now keep that in mind when I tell you that as a windows programmer myself, I have been continually frustrated when a new OS version, or even a service pack or simple automatic update breaks my code. And even the best installer, that’s supposed to take every .DLL and resource a customer might need into account, still can easily miss things that can destroy a programs functionality. In such cases, I would always rush to say it wasn’t the fault of my program. But over time I’ve come to understand that from a user’s point of view, that’s the wrong answer, even if its technically correct, unless there really is nothing I can do about it.
So to me, this is one of those cases. Granted its not WP’s fault. BUT… since there are billions of GIFs in the world, and since they still have a lot of benefits for their animation abilities, its worth doing something about it if you can do so with reasonably little effort. Here’s what I’d propose…
1) The first time a user imports graphics into a library, detect if GIFs were involved and if so, give them a one time warning of a possible issue, and offer them a link to an information page with workarounds, explanations, and solutions. But also, if you consider step 2, you can also make them aware this will only affect the thumbnails…
2) You can fix this without writing a new GD library or installing Imagick. All you need to do is modify WP so that when images are imported, only the thumbnail and icon size versions get passed through GD. For the full size initial graphic, there is no reason to do any graphic processing of any kind. If you need to rename the file (as WP seems to do) to append the graphic’s dimensions. That, of course, that can be done with a simple file system call. (If you can’t get the dimensions without a GD call, just make a copy of the graphic file in a TMP dir, let GD process the copy, and then use the processed file name to rename the original.) I’m sure PHP has file calls to allow renaming and copying without touching the file content The result would be that even if the thumbnail and icon sized instances are corrupt, no flaw in GD could EVER cause the problem I encountered. That would pretty much make it a NON issue to all users.
Now again, everyone can argue that this problem is not specifically WPs fault, and you are all technically correct. But, if a change as simple as I’m suggesting can eliminate the problem (except for the thumbnails), then NOT making that change as part of a future version IS WPs fault. Its no different than when a new version of Windows breaks my code. If a user brings it to my attention, and I have a solution, sure I’ll explain that the fault was in the windows update, but I’ll also fix it if I can, rather than suggest the user jum through more hoops than necessary. Its just the right thing to do.
Yes I understand that WP is free, and so all the coders must be contributing their time. But I think my suggestion is a pretty easy fix, and will definitely save others from this frustration. Remember that to a layman trying to use WP, understanding the PHP GD issue and getting Imagic to work will be beyond many of them. Here’s a fairly simply way to eliminate the hassle.
Forum: Fixing WordPress
In reply to: Gif Transparencies not transparentBy the way, if anyone is having trouble getting the ImageMagic replacement for PHP GD to work, at least on my Hostmonster.com I found it didn’t like the default PHP.5.2, but finally worked correctly when I switched to 5.4. So at least for WP, my problems with GIFs are now solved. WP is my first experience with PHP so I don’t have to worry about breaking anything on my other domains with this company, but other’s milage may vary.
Forum: Fixing WordPress
In reply to: Gif Transparencies not transparent1) The page you showed me looked fine. bear in mind the the images you now see on my page are also already fine, as they were added without going through the normal upload process. However, if you go to this image I uploaded through the normal process… http://elfintechnologies.com/wp-content/uploads/Stand_elf3x-268×342.gif, you’ll find an image that has been damaged by the process. I don’t know what you mean by a “subset of us”. But if it happens to more than 1 person, information on a workaround is worth a post I think. 🙂
2) “HTML Tab”. Please explain? When I’m editing a page, I don’t see an “HTML” tab. I have an editor and an add media button, and the add-media button takes me to an “insert media” page, which is where I found the option to “insert from URL”, but there’s no HTML tab there either.
Forum: Fixing WordPress
In reply to: Gif Transparencies not transparentOK,
There’s not much else to say on this thread, but if nothing else, I’d suggest you keep it in the archives and don’t mark it ‘resolved” or delete it. It may benefit of other WP users, since the issue has been brought up in the past.
To re-cap, the problem with GIF transparencies does NOT happen if you add graphics to a page using the option to add from a URL. Therefore, it makes sense to make a directory with your troublesome graphics in a directory (like IMGS) close to the root of your domain. Make sure to use simple FTP to put your files there. You can then browse to it with any browser to see all the available file names, view one of the (again from the browser), and then copy/paste the URL into the the URL box in the ADD media option for the page. Further, I believe you can make WP use a relative path to the graphic by modifying the copied URL from “http://yourdomain/IMGS/myfile.GIF” to simply “/IMGS/myfile.GIF”, and you’re done. Thus you can use your existing collection of GIFs without converting them all to PNGs, sacrificing animations, or trying to get something like ImageMagick to work. With this info, at least there is a choice.
Forum: Fixing WordPress
In reply to: Gif Transparencies not transparentPioneer: Well it is good to know the conversions are reasonably easy, and more important that the transparencies work (though always the skeptic, I’ll have to test that ;-). And, can you do a simple cute animations with a PNG the way you can with a GIF? (example, http://pixyland.org/peterpan/Imagezz/anim_TinkFlight.gif ).
Not to beat a dead horse here, but I’m still not clear on the advantage of PNG files, or taking the time to convert them. I do understand your explanation of how graphic elements can make rendering on different size screens a challenge, and I’d be the first to agree that style wise a good deal of the way I compose pages is outdated by todays standards. But unless you’re telling me that PNGs can auto-resize themselves, offer a choice of pallet sizes from 2 colors to 16 million, are capable of animations as well as transparencies, I’m not sure I understand the advantage, beyond them overcoming a problem with PHP GD.
One other question though, regarding the use of this imagick to replace GD. As a former composer of pages requiring no server side help, the whole matter of CMS and pages served by PHP is new territory for me, so that’s something i WILL be spending some time to learn, and I’m pretty sure there will be a lot more PHP based pages and sites in my future, with wordpress and without. I’m still having trouble getting Imagick configured properly, but once I do, can I count on it to work with any PHP pages that call on the GD library? Or is it a specific plugin for wordpress that won’t work with anything else?
Forum: Fixing WordPress
In reply to: Gif Transparencies not transparentI appreciate your advice Pioneer, but please let me offer some perspective. You say “why not use PNG like everybody else” has for a very long time?” the answer is that I’ve also been building websites with nothing but GIFs and JPGs for a very long time, since around 2001, actually winning a webby award for one of them, and happen to have a ton of graphics I’d like to be able to continue to use. Every one of my GIFs display properly in ANY browser back to the start of the WWW, when Netscape and “trumpet Winsock” was the only game for PC users. Before any browser could do anything with a PNG beyond displaying a broken image icon, pissing off the viewer while the web designer said “too bad, let them upgrade”, I was trying to ensure cross browser compatibility for all my viewers.
Even though everyone in our world keeps reasonably up to date up with the latest browsers and tools, I guarantee there are elderly people and those on fixed incomes whose machines are so old, its a wonder they can even connect to Google. Well if they can get on the web at all, I want my sites to be among those they can see, if at all possible. So old as they are, GIFs and JPGs are tried and true. So lets not blame the format. MP3 is also an old format with many variations, but I guarantee if you designed a music player that didn’t work with someone’s song library, advising them to convert their MP3s to a new format would not be the right solution. Fixing the PROBLEM is always the best solution.
Yes, GIF has several formats, making them useful for short compressed animations as well as transparencies, and they can also be very useful in non web based software that needs GIF icons for control panel indicators. So here I was just hoping to rebuild one of my smaller existing websites with text and graphics that I already have and already displays correctly on every browser ever made. I don’t think that’s an extreme request.
Forum: Fixing WordPress
In reply to: Gif Transparencies not transparentPioneer Valley: Thanks for the info link from Hostmonster. But the fact that wordpress, brand new and out of the box, doesn’t allow you to import GIFs without corrupting them, is still what most users would call a BUG, even if there is a work-around.
Also, forgive me for being discouraged, but I guess I misunderstood the whole WP concept. As one whose web efforts have always been client side (HTML, CSS, Javascript), I haven’t a clue about PHP, but I thought WP was something that would allow me to compose a site without learning it, or having to learn to custom configure my hosting company’s servers. That page you pointed me to tells me to look in my ” /usr/bin/convert” directory which doesn’t seem to exist when I FTP into my account where my domains are located. It also recommends I execute the command “convert -version”. Um… really? from where? A DOS box on my home machine? I’m sure they mean from some kind of shell account. I don’t have that.
So I guess I’m pretty lost. I’m certainly not opposed to learning new things, but I thought the point of WP was to avoid needing to. At least not to do something as simple as add a graphic image to your page.
I guess I’ll write to Hostmonster and see if they can help me make sense of this.
Forum: Fixing WordPress
In reply to: Gif Transparencies not transparentSo WPRangler…
Now please be patient with me when you answer… despite years of building websites, I’ve never needed any custom server side PHP, and always prepared all my own graphics. So I never did relied on anything like this “GD”.
Now that article you linked certainly seems to hit the nail right on the head, proving 9what i suspected from the beginning) that no change in themes or manually updating anything would have helped. So again, thanks. I’ve reverted my page to the theme I’d had before and removed the bad image. At least its not a total mess now if a visitor happens by.
But about this ImageMagikEngine… I figured rather than jump through a dozen hoops to see if it would work for me, maybe I’ll just TRY it and see if it works. Well I found it, and it did install and activate properly according to the plugin manager. But what do I need to do to give it a try? My dashboard still has the same links to “Media Library”, and the subsequent links to uploading files, or using the multifile uploader looks the same. I have deleted most of my “bad” graphics, but uploading one of them fresh results in the same mangled GIF. At the very least, i ahve to be able to embed graphics in pages without all this fuss, so if I need to work with my hosting company to get PHP changes done to make this work, it might be time to throw in the towel on WP for now, and just go back to building web pages the way i always did.
By the way… (1) my imagemagic engine settings say “ImageMagick Engine is not enabled”, (2) when I select PHP for the IMAGIG dropdown menu, the box below says ” Imagick PHP module not found”, and finally, when i manually click “REGENEERATE”, it processes 4 images in my image library, but definitely did not fix any of them.
So… not very hopeful, right?
Forum: Fixing WordPress
In reply to: Gif Transparencies not transparentThanks WP! Well I’ll try it, though I’m wondering now if I need to do a “royal flush” and re-install from scratch first, given the the other errors that have been pointed out. I am also curious how the same experiment would have gone had you not had that plugin though. If the problem is still there without it, at least it might get viewed as a real bug and fixed… maybe. And its a little discouraging to think that something as simple as preserving graphics would be a issue for a seasoned product, without a special plugin.
Anyway, one other thing… not related, but seems wasteful. Looking at the WP generated code on that page, I notice that each <img> tag has a full path (in my case http://elfintechnologies.com/ .. / .. / myimage.gif). I could understand that for the image I added via the URL method, but to add graphics from your own uploads and have each one have a full path is wasteful. At least my hosting company (hostmonster.com) has told me its wasteful of CPU bandwidth, and should be avoided.
Forum: Fixing WordPress
In reply to: Gif Transparencies not transparentFirst of all, Here’s the file, directly FTP’d into my domain, in a non WP directory…
http://elfintechnologies.com/images/Stand_elf3x_faceLeft.gif
Here it is again, after having been uploaded through the WP uploader, and placed on a page…
http://elfintechnologies.com/wp-content/uploads/Stand_elf3x_faceLeft-222×300.gif
Note that I did not do this ‘renaming’, nor resiozing, and it probably reflects the resizing done by WP after the upload tio the media library. Viewing either, in any browser, clearly shows the appearance of the file itself has been altered. Note also that by viewing these files directly, you are eliminating any and all markup errors from the experimente (though any markup errors must be caused by WP, as this is not a hand coded site). I should also point out that this issue happened with the default theme, as well as the ‘displace’ and ‘thin mint’ themes I tried, and I’ve now switched back to the default with no change. Therefore it has nothing to do with a THEME problem.
I think its kind of lousy that I can’t report a bug without changing the whole site around. Its a new enough installation that I could dump the whole thing and start over. But what if I had spent years with WP and only needed GIF transparencies today? Is this the rule: “No Bug Reports until we see the problem with all defaults”? Its easy to tell someone to rip out everything and start over… default theme…. new graphics, too bad for your layout or viewers, etc. But how about actually seeing if my suggested experiment proves its a bug?
Granted this is a free product, so I can’t gripe if gatekeepers refuse to let the authors know of a problem, and no one is paying you for the time to try and re-create it. But it sadly reminds me of situations I’ve seen in the past, where a bug is pointed out in a product, and because the product has been around for years and years, everyone is sure its NOT a bug, and so it never gets reported. As I said before, this explains why similar complaints I’ve seen were never really addressed, apparently in many versions going back a long way.
I’m a software engineer too. I’ve learned that when I hear of a problem in my code, I always want to duplicate to see if its really user error. Especially if doing so would take me all of 5 minutes. I do so because I’ve just seen too many cases where user problems are assumed to be their own fault, only to have the company end up apologizing after the code problem is finally checked and discovered to be valid. The WP upload process does alter the GIF images during the upload/re size process. That process is the same regardless of the theme, because you can see the images get deformed immediately afte opload, just by looking at the thumbnails in the media library.
Anyway, I have changed my site to default theme, so now it really looks like garbage. So if I have some time today maybe I’ll ditch the entire WP install and start over. But if the problem persists, and no one will help me prepare a bug report, then we’re back to the scenario I described… I have a work-around (which I explained earlier), and so I’ll stop asking about the bug report, and the problem will remain.
Forum: Fixing WordPress
In reply to: Gif Transparencies not transparentThanks Pioneer, but honestly if anyone wants to help, the best thing would be for someone to try to duplicate the problem to see if its universal. To do so, just right click and download/copy the “GOOD” elf GIF from my page with your browser, and store it on your computer (I’m on a windows box if it matters). Then, try to upload it to your media library through the WP multi-file uploader, and then try putting it on a test page. If the background of the GIF becomes black and non transparent, then THAT will prove whether the problem is universal. If it is, there’s no sense in my going through all these steps.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not opposed to trying things, but my complaint is an old one I’ve seen quite a bit in the forums, and my work around proves the issue. My WP install is just days old and I discovered this problem on the very first day. So if my WP core is corrupt, then the product has a bug, and what I asked for was how to go about reporting it.
Forum: Fixing WordPress
In reply to: Gif Transparencies not transparentWell OK, but understand that in order to show you a page with the issue, I had to re-edit the page to intentionally show you the issue.
Look at http://elfintechnologies.com/, and please forgive the lousy page formatting. Look off to the right text margin and scroll downward. You’ll see a standing GIF of an Elf. Notice that the green background is showing through the transparent area. This is the way it SHOULD look, and is also the one I placed on the page using the URL method. Now scroll down slightly and you’ll see a second instance of the same GIF. This one is slightly smaller (to my eyes anyway), has a black background, and even appears to have a frame. That is the same exact file that was first uploaded into my media library using the WordPress multi-file upload. Once uploaded, I added this image to the page by selecting it from the media library. Note that although you cants see it, the thumbnail in my media library look similarly deformed.
Also in case it matters, I have tried a few different themes and found that this problem persists.
Forum: Fixing WordPress
In reply to: Awful differences between browsersI have no clue whether this is a problem with the theme or with wordpress, which is why I posted here. But if cross posting is OK, I’ll post there too.
