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Republish iWeb 1.0 sites to reduce image load times Apps
I found this Apple Knowledge Base article while looking for another iWeb-related problem. In it, Apple states:
When you added images to your page they would be converted to PNG format images when published. PNG is a format which allows for image transparency to be displayed in your web browser. However, the downside is that this image format takes up more disk space than a compressed JPEG.

Enhancements in iWeb 1.0.1 allow for most types of images and photo page thumbnails to be published as JPEGs where possible. This translates into faster page loads when people visit your website.
To take advantage of this new feature in existing sites, you need to republish all of its pages. To to that quickly, hold down the Option key and Publish All to .Mac from the File menu.

[robg adds: In many cases, PNGs can be substantially smaller than JPEGs, so ideally, you'd be able to choose which format you'd like to use on a per-image basis. For instance, a 640x480 photo of my cat becomes a 57KB JPEG (at 65% quality), or a 164KB PNG-8, but a 728x417 screenshot becomes a 77KB JPEG or a 40KB PNG-8. Assuming you mostly publish photos via iWeb, you should see a fairly notable reduction in file sizes.]
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Republish iWeb 1.0 sites to reduce image load times | 5 comments | Create New Account
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Republish iWeb 1.0 sites to reduce image load times
Authored by: deleted_user18 on Feb 27, '06 10:08:06AM

Good hint, thank you.

I was hoping for iWeb to recognise changes itself and ask the user to update web pages.

BTW I get an unknown error when trying to republish my web pages all at once. Oh well, guess I have to wait vor iWeb 1.0.2 or iWeb '07...



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Republish iWeb 1.0 sites to reduce image load times
Authored by: g_lined on Feb 27, '06 11:32:37AM

PNGs and JPGs both have their place. They compress images differently.
PNGs (and GIFs) compress well for simple, geometric graphics. PNGs don't blur any lines, they stay perfectly rendered. That's why the PNG worked well for a desktop screen grab.

JPEGs were designed for photos. They do a good job of showing complex pictures, but give it a straight line and you'll see it become fuzzier the lower the size (hence quality) of the JPEG.

You can get away with everything being a JPEG as long as you keep the quality high, but you pay for that in file size.
PNGs do a good job, quality wise, of showing photos but with a pretty high tax on size. JPEGs are def. the way to go for photos.



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Republish iWeb 1.0 sites to reduce image load times
Authored by: doctype on Feb 27, '06 01:03:03PM

In my experience, the PNG's iWeb creates are 24 bit images (8 bit for each channel), which means they are considerably bigger than JPG – and only PNG-24 is able to have "smooth" transparency. So I guess, iWeb now converts only to PNG-24 when transparency is needed. Graphics for buttons et. al. from the template system are usually PNG-8.



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Republish iWeb 1.0 sites to reduce image load times
Authored by: kL on Feb 27, '06 02:24:43PM

Use PNGOUT tool! (there is version for OS X as well)

It's little slow, but optimizes PNGs very, very well (better than optipng, pngcrush).

You can use pngquant as well to convert 24bit PNGs to 8bit, while preserving full alpha transparency (neither Photoshop nor GIMP can do that!).

Oh, and there is jpegoptim as well...

All above are open-source free command-line tools.



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Beware of PNG and IE
Authored by: ibroughton on Feb 28, '06 01:37:39AM

Hmm...

Have a look at my site www.iainbroughton.com and the logo in the centre on the front page.

On decent browsers it has a transparent background. In IE (Version 6.0 XP Home SP2) it displays as having a white background.


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The server is up but the site is down and I don't know which direction you are trying to go



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