Re: [gtk-list] Re: How do I get the color....

[Des Herriott <des ops netcom net uk>]

On May 21, raster@redhat.com wrote:
> and it's garbage. 
> use png.
> xpm is badly thought up as a format, and thus is ambiguous. I had to go
> to enormous lengths to just be able to parse some xpm's becuase there
> is a major ambiguity in the format conecrning whitespace.
> Also the format doesnt lkimit the number of colros thus some aps (gimp)
> will create xpm's with colrotabels of 1000's of entries that are a
> nightmare to load (and to save too), libXpm wont load xpm's wiht mroe
> than 256 colro entires - a lot of programs wont and will complain that
> they are invalid xpm's. Imlib will try and load them, albeit slowly.
 
I hadn't realised that - thanks for the info.

> The ONLY use xpm has is to #include into source code and thus be
> inlined. This is where its use should end. 

But if it's as poor a format as say, is even this a good enough reason
to keep it?  How does GNOME deal with pixmaps - inlined in the source
or loaded at runtime?

> use another format - png is what I suggest. ppm is also viable as it's
> just about the simples format to parse by hand and wirte your own
> loaders and savers for, but it doesn't support transparency.

Does png support opacity levels, out of curiosity?  Where's a good 
description/reference about png?

-- 
Des Herriott
des@ops.netcom.net.uk