6 ms·

apngasm - FOSS Animated PNG tools and APNG standardization

46 points by GravityWell 13y ago

boksiora 13y ago
i hope this project succeed
bloodorange 13y ago
I wish they had picked a name that wouldn't be odd when mentioned at work.
- eli 13y ago
  At the risk of sounding older than I am, I've noticed a lot of young developers these days give things cutesy or even risque names. (Edit: Also, it seems that name was selected by the author of the original CLI program for APNGs, who does not appear to be involved in this kickstarter)
  - hackerboos 13y ago
    There was a javascript library called Testacular but they seen sense and changed the name to Karma.
    - GhotiFish 13y ago
      When searching for Testacular help, you used the terms: Testacular -testicular. Now when searching for Karma help, you use the terms: Karma -Testacular -testicular. Fun world we live in.
  - ohWhatever 13y ago
    I have always hated the tendency toward creating retarded adverbs, ever since people took to registering domains in the Libya country code TLD. Now, we'r stuck with all these trendy sounding SaaS projects that have adopted some of the most irritating names imaginable. I wish people would stop dreaming up stupid website domains like: dork.ly fart.ly retard.ly (note that in most cases, it would take a small leap of imagination to choose "retarded" over "retard" in case like this, but that opportunity is often squandered) adverb.ly grammar.ly and-so-on.ly ...even worse is when someone truly brainless comes along, and adheres to the trend, but registers under a .com TLD, and still botches the grammar of the word. as in: botchedly.com I have always hated these sorts of names.
- rikacomet 13y ago
  I think we can go with words A.P.G. (same analogy as PNG, and JPG) APG sounds more catchy.. just giving my nickels on the name, use it if you want. This project is something I have been waiting for, like forever, the idea is very good, I hope the execution of this idea is good as well. Somehow I have high expectations (which is unusual for me for such works)
- ohWhatever 13y ago
  I don't get it. What's wrong with the name? Are you pronouncing it as if it were the verb, "aping", like as in "poorly imitating a person's behavior in the primitive manner of an ape"? My inclination was to spell out the letters of the acronym, as in "A-P-N-G", like: Ay, Pee, En, Gee. I don't think they were targeting a funny name. I wonder if they're fluent in English.
  - kbrackbill 13y ago
    I think it's not APNG that's the issue but the kickstarter's name, "apngasm".
- Dylan16807 13y ago
  A Ping A S M? Aping assembler? I don't see much problem.
  - Millennium 13y ago
    Right, and "Rather A Pokemon Emulator?" was completely, totally, in no way a backronym either.
    - Dylan16807 13y ago
      1. I think in this case it could plausibly be a coincidence. 2. One possible pronunciation is not at all a problem for talking about a project because you can just use a different one. Especially if the innocuous pronunciation makes more sense, as I think it does. 3. "Rather A Pokemon Emulator?" is a problem because it's an acronym. If you want something that applies to this situation, try something like "Car: A Pokemon Emulator". Saying that 'carape' or 'CarAPE' is offensive is pretty ridiculous.
derefr 13y ago
A bit of history on this: All APNG has ever really needed to build a sustainable momentum is--like most other web features--a plurality of web browser support. These days, that usually means "supported in both Firefox and Chrome." Until that happens, nobody has any reason to create APNGs, because you can't stick them in your cutesy forum signature and expect other people using the website to see what you see. Firefox already has APNG support; Chrome is the hold-out here. It's mostly because Google only want to use the "official" libpng. libpng, though, is intentionally a minimalist reference implementation! The PNG group will never accept the APNG patches into the official libpng, because that would distract from libpng's purpose in being a reference for how to encode/decode PNGs. And Google don't want to apply the APNG patches themselves, because that means, basically, supporting their own fork of libpng. In other words, what's really been needed this whole time isn't "better authoring tools" (create consumption tools, and authoring tools will follow) but rather for some large organization to get behind maintaining and supporting a regular release of "current libpng with apng patches." Big enough, at least, for Google to feel as confident in their work as they do the PNG group's. The easy solution, of course, would be to split out the work Mozilla is already doing in maintaining their "current libpng with apng patches" from Gecko into a separate project, and let both Mozilla and Google (and Apple and Microsoft and whoever else) be consumers for that project. If there's anything to get done, it's that.
- rikacomet 13y ago
  Umm, I'm not a techie, but these are my RAW thoughts: - So you say, that APG (APNG) requires compatibility support from major browser and development support from a hard working organization, with relative financial support. But what about, compatibility support in Photoshop, GIMP? I think the stretch goal amount should be spent on this, if anything. I don't want to try a new editor just for APG. - One more suggestion I have is to make it as simple to use as Unfreez Program for creating GIF, which as simple as : 1. Drag and Drop 2. Type Delay time 3. Click "OK" to compile http://www.whitsoftdev.com/unfreez/ http://www.whitsoftdev.com/unfreez/ (a very good program, damn simple to use for even a noob, only 19KB, I have used it for years to make animated GIF) - Editing frames should be easy, but the whole program should not be as complex as animation software are supposed to be.
Camillo 13y ago
It's going to be great when users post APNGs with a first 1/30s frame that shows Mickey Mouse's face and a second permanent frame that shows hardcore porn. And your moderator uses a browser that doesn't support APNG, so they just see the innocuous frame and have no idea about the rest. Automatic fallback to a normal static PNG is a terrible idea. If you want an animation format, give it its own extension and MIME type. The only reason why it works for GIF is that it's basically assumed to be animated nowadays, and it started out with animation support (as far as the web is concerned).
- Dylan16807 13y ago
  You can already do things like that with gamma. To say nothing of embeds allowing file substitution. I don't see why fallback is bad. Having a single canonical file is so much nicer than multiple files. APNG has been around for ages. If you as an upload-accepting web dev aren't aware of it you're not a very good web dev. And as a user you don't even know what container an image is using 99% of the time, so MIME type doesn't matter. Browsers tend to ignore image MIME anyway because of how common mislabelings are.
- lnanek2 13y ago
  I used to run and code an image posting site. It took me all of half an hour to add a feature to the admin section that showed every frame of an animated image when posted using the image magick library from PHP. So this isn't a particularly difficult problem from a moderation perspective. Silent bans and contagious bans took a lot more coding (banning someone such that they don't know their posts are no longer visible, and banning someone automatically if they've posted a banned image or have a cookie from a pervious ban, etc..). I hate APNG personally, though, because I think MNG makes a lot more sense. The server can return what is appropriate based on standard HTTP content negotiation with that. APNG is just a stupid hack and the only reason Mozilla went with it instead of MNG is because is saves 100KB in the browser binary, which I couldn't care less about.
kunil 13y ago
Yes, bring animated gifs back to the web again!
Grue3 13y ago
Animated GIF is an abomination. I wish APNG would take over. All that's needed is a tool that would convert APNG to GIF server side for browsers that don't support APNG. Thus Firefox users will enjoy better image quality, and Chrome users will have to either switch or enjoy the crapness of GIF image format until Google implements APNG support too.

46 points by GravityWell 13y ago

boksiora 13y ago

i hope this project succeed

bloodorange 13y ago

I wish they had picked a name that wouldn't be odd when mentioned at work.

eli 13y ago
At the risk of sounding older than I am, I've noticed a lot of young developers these days give things cutesy or even risque names. (Edit: Also, it seems that name was selected by the author of the original CLI program for APNGs, who does not appear to be involved in this kickstarter)
- hackerboos 13y ago
  There was a javascript library called Testacular but they seen sense and changed the name to Karma.
  - GhotiFish 13y ago
    When searching for Testacular help, you used the terms: Testacular -testicular. Now when searching for Karma help, you use the terms: Karma -Testacular -testicular. Fun world we live in.
- ohWhatever 13y ago
  I have always hated the tendency toward creating retarded adverbs, ever since people took to registering domains in the Libya country code TLD. Now, we'r stuck with all these trendy sounding SaaS projects that have adopted some of the most irritating names imaginable. I wish people would stop dreaming up stupid website domains like: dork.ly fart.ly retard.ly (note that in most cases, it would take a small leap of imagination to choose "retarded" over "retard" in case like this, but that opportunity is often squandered) adverb.ly grammar.ly and-so-on.ly ...even worse is when someone truly brainless comes along, and adheres to the trend, but registers under a .com TLD, and still botches the grammar of the word. as in: botchedly.com I have always hated these sorts of names.
rikacomet 13y ago
I think we can go with words A.P.G. (same analogy as PNG, and JPG) APG sounds more catchy.. just giving my nickels on the name, use it if you want. This project is something I have been waiting for, like forever, the idea is very good, I hope the execution of this idea is good as well. Somehow I have high expectations (which is unusual for me for such works)
ohWhatever 13y ago
I don't get it. What's wrong with the name? Are you pronouncing it as if it were the verb, "aping", like as in "poorly imitating a person's behavior in the primitive manner of an ape"? My inclination was to spell out the letters of the acronym, as in "A-P-N-G", like: Ay, Pee, En, Gee. I don't think they were targeting a funny name. I wonder if they're fluent in English.
- kbrackbill 13y ago
  I think it's not APNG that's the issue but the kickstarter's name, "apngasm".
Dylan16807 13y ago
A Ping A S M? Aping assembler? I don't see much problem.
- Millennium 13y ago
  Right, and "Rather A Pokemon Emulator?" was completely, totally, in no way a backronym either.
  - Dylan16807 13y ago
    1. I think in this case it could plausibly be a coincidence. 2. One possible pronunciation is not at all a problem for talking about a project because you can just use a different one. Especially if the innocuous pronunciation makes more sense, as I think it does. 3. "Rather A Pokemon Emulator?" is a problem because it's an acronym. If you want something that applies to this situation, try something like "Car: A Pokemon Emulator". Saying that 'carape' or 'CarAPE' is offensive is pretty ridiculous.

derefr 13y ago

A bit of history on this: All APNG has ever really needed to build a sustainable momentum is--like most other web features--a plurality of web browser support. These days, that usually means "supported in both Firefox and Chrome." Until that happens, nobody has any reason to create APNGs, because you can't stick them in your cutesy forum signature and expect other people using the website to see what you see. Firefox already has APNG support; Chrome is the hold-out here. It's mostly because Google only want to use the "official" libpng. libpng, though, is intentionally a minimalist reference implementation! The PNG group will never accept the APNG patches into the official libpng, because that would distract from libpng's purpose in being a reference for how to encode/decode PNGs. And Google don't want to apply the APNG patches themselves, because that means, basically, supporting their own fork of libpng. In other words, what's really been needed this whole time isn't "better authoring tools" (create consumption tools, and authoring tools will follow) but rather for some large organization to get behind maintaining and supporting a regular release of "current libpng with apng patches." Big enough, at least, for Google to feel as confident in their work as they do the PNG group's. The easy solution, of course, would be to split out the work Mozilla is already doing in maintaining their "current libpng with apng patches" from Gecko into a separate project, and let both Mozilla and Google (and Apple and Microsoft and whoever else) be consumers for that project. If there's anything to get done, it's that.

rikacomet 13y ago
Umm, I'm not a techie, but these are my RAW thoughts: - So you say, that APG (APNG) requires compatibility support from major browser and development support from a hard working organization, with relative financial support. But what about, compatibility support in Photoshop, GIMP? I think the stretch goal amount should be spent on this, if anything. I don't want to try a new editor just for APG. - One more suggestion I have is to make it as simple to use as Unfreez Program for creating GIF, which as simple as : 1. Drag and Drop 2. Type Delay time 3. Click "OK" to compile http://www.whitsoftdev.com/unfreez/ http://www.whitsoftdev.com/unfreez/ (a very good program, damn simple to use for even a noob, only 19KB, I have used it for years to make animated GIF) - Editing frames should be easy, but the whole program should not be as complex as animation software are supposed to be.

Camillo 13y ago

It's going to be great when users post APNGs with a first 1/30s frame that shows Mickey Mouse's face and a second permanent frame that shows hardcore porn. And your moderator uses a browser that doesn't support APNG, so they just see the innocuous frame and have no idea about the rest. Automatic fallback to a normal static PNG is a terrible idea. If you want an animation format, give it its own extension and MIME type. The only reason why it works for GIF is that it's basically assumed to be animated nowadays, and it started out with animation support (as far as the web is concerned).

Dylan16807 13y ago
You can already do things like that with gamma. To say nothing of embeds allowing file substitution. I don't see why fallback is bad. Having a single canonical file is so much nicer than multiple files. APNG has been around for ages. If you as an upload-accepting web dev aren't aware of it you're not a very good web dev. And as a user you don't even know what container an image is using 99% of the time, so MIME type doesn't matter. Browsers tend to ignore image MIME anyway because of how common mislabelings are.
lnanek2 13y ago
I used to run and code an image posting site. It took me all of half an hour to add a feature to the admin section that showed every frame of an animated image when posted using the image magick library from PHP. So this isn't a particularly difficult problem from a moderation perspective. Silent bans and contagious bans took a lot more coding (banning someone such that they don't know their posts are no longer visible, and banning someone automatically if they've posted a banned image or have a cookie from a pervious ban, etc..). I hate APNG personally, though, because I think MNG makes a lot more sense. The server can return what is appropriate based on standard HTTP content negotiation with that. APNG is just a stupid hack and the only reason Mozilla went with it instead of MNG is because is saves 100KB in the browser binary, which I couldn't care less about.

kunil 13y ago

Yes, bring animated gifs back to the web again!

Grue3 13y ago

Animated GIF is an abomination. I wish APNG would take over. All that's needed is a tool that would convert APNG to GIF server side for browsers that don't support APNG. Thus Firefox users will enjoy better image quality, and Chrome users will have to either switch or enjoy the crapness of GIF image format until Google implements APNG support too.