Re: Screenshots to HTML

[jeremy@xxxxxxxxx (Jeremy H. Griffith)]

On Tue, 21 Sep 1999 14:23:00 +0200, "Donna Taragin" <donna.t@sapiens.com> wrote:

>The trouble is you are letting Frame convert the images to GIF.  Frame's
>conversion is a very poor conversion.  Instead, do the conversion yourself
>with a better program (e.g. PaintShopPro) and then copy the GIF image as a
>referenced image into the Frame file.  When you save as HTML within Frame,
>the GIF images stay as referenced files in the HTML code.  The last step is
>to copy all the GIFs into the directory with the Frame-produced HTML files.
>The images are quite nice via Netscape or Explorer.
>
>All sounds fine.  When I got to this stage a few months ago, I thought I had
>it "all together": one source that could go to print, to pdf and to html.
>However, the problem is the one that was discussed here recently:  A license
>to use GIFs on web sites from Unisys which costs lots of money.

I'm really glad to see you take this seriously.  IMHO, "due diligence"
now requires that anyone with GIFs on a commercial site consult with a
patent attorney to determine whether they need a Unisys license.  The
information on the Unisys site is *not* sufficient to answer this...
deliberately.  Enough said.

>The choice is then to do the same procedure with PNGs instead of GIFs.

Or with JPEGs.  Contrary to weel-establishe rumors, we've found that all
the JPEGs we've used to replace GIFs directly look just fine.  See our
Web site for yourself; the graphics are all line art, and type, and look
good.  We used our own mif2go HTML converter, which in turn uses Frame's
export filters to make the JPEGs.  We got around the nasty problem of
shrinkage when using Frame's own HTML export by setting the DPI to 96
instead of 75; you can make it what you please in our .ini file.

>However, Frame seems to convert referenced PNG images into its own version
>of PNGs.  This is bad because the Frame PNG images aren't even visible via
>Netscape or Explorer.  When I go into the HTML code and change the Frame
>PNG-referenced file to my own PNG image, all is fine.  I don't want to have
>to change each Frame PNG to my own PNG, but there is no choice.

With mif2go, you can specify the image to use, and the graphic attributes,
in the mif2htm.ini on a frame-by-frame basis.  It uses the ones you name.

>That is where I am now.  If anyone can offer any ideas of where to go from
>here, I would appreciate it.

Well, mif2go would certainly solve the problem, at $295 for both HTML and
RTF outputs... and it solves lots of other problems you may not have seen
yet.  Have a look at our newly-redesigned and expanded Web pages for it:
  http://www.omsys.com/dcl/mif2go.htm

If you want to stick with the Frame native HTML, one possibility is to put
your <IMG...> tags in HTML General Macros on the reference pages, then use
HTML Macro markers in the body.  You could use conditional text to select
either the real anchored frame for print, or your macro for HTML.  At least
then you wouldn't have to edit the HTML every time...

-- Jeremy H. Griffith, at Omni Systems Inc.
  (jeremy@omsys.com)  http://www.omsys.com/

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