[bipto]

Under 9.1, some installs of Dreamweaver display GIF very strangly. Sort of like they're transparent of something. Anyway, I wrote to Macromedia support and received the following answer:

Thank you for your contacting Macromedia Technical Support.

I am not aware of any Dreamweaver issue specific to the Mac OS version 9.1.
First, determine if the GIFs preview ok in the browser. If they do not,
chances are the images themselves have been corrupted. Also, if you have
resized the images in Dreamweaver at all, it is normal to experience some
distortion.

Then I would try the following tests:

1. Make sure the problem still happens if Dreamweaver (DW) is the only
application running.
2. Under Control Panels > Extension Manager, switch your 'Selected Set' to
'Mac OS Base', restart, and test DW.
3. Under Control Panels > Appearance > Themes, make sure your desktop theme
is 'Mac OS Default'
4. Under Control Panels > Appearance > Fonts, make sure your system fonts
are standard Mac fonts, like Charcoal or Geneva.
5. As a diagnostic, try turning down your resolution to 640 x 480 pixels, at
256 colors, under Control Panels > Monitors. Then start Dreamweaver and open
up the problematic page.
5. Try a clean reinstall of Dreamweaver:

Quit Dreamweaver. Move the Dreamweaver application folder into the trash.
Go into the System Folder > Preferences and remove any files or folders
that say Dreamweaver.

Then, for good measure, copy the installer file to the hard drive. Reboot
with the shift key down (so that extensions are disabled) then run the
installer with extensions off (to be sure nothing is interfering with the
installation process).

After the software has successfully installed, reboot the system again.
Launch Dreamweaver (you'll need to reenter the serial number) and
try working with Dreamweaver again, to see if the issue has been resolved.

I am hoping one of the above steps will either solve the issue or at least
tell you where the conflict lies.

I did all these things to no effect. The problem remains. Anyone else seen this or found a likely explination?

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b i p t o
e w e a s e l . n e t

[scram]

Well some one else in the newest area has the same problem and I posted a reply there, that I have the same problem as yourself., but now I see you have done what I am thinking would fix it, damn, will have to think of something else.

[bipto]

There is a lengthy forum covering this problem over on MacFixIt:

http://www.macfixit.com/ultimate/For...ML/006115.html

Originally posted by bipto:
Under 9.1, some installs of Dreamweaver display GIF very strangly. Sort of like they're transparent of something. Anyway, I wrote to Macromedia support and received the following answer:

I did all these things to no effect. The problem remains. Anyone else seen this or found a likely explination?

per Macromedia technote 15072 "MacOS 9.1 and Gif distortion with pages in Dreamweaver" http://www.macromedia.com/support/dr...gifs_mac91.htm

I have found the following workaround in addition to those noted:
Using GraphicConverter http://www.graphicconverter.net

open the GIF you wish 'undistorted'. Select Picture->Colors->Sort Color Table (order normal), and then save the Gif.
Item no longer appears distorted within Dreamweaver on OS 9.1.
Registered users of GraphicConverter can use the 'File->convert... >batch' option to sort the color tables of a complete folder of gifs.
Works like a charm! I fixed the 33 gifs for a site I manage in just a few minutes.

This workaround will likely work with other image apps that are showing signs of distorted gifs.

See also http://devworld.apple.com/technotes/...html#quickdraw
for details on why this seems to work. Basically white is '0', and black '255' Sorting the color table seems to address the comment "The Color Manager has been changed so that requests for white and black on 8 bit devices now use the documented requirement that white is the first entry in the pallette and black the last entry. This will cause problems if applications have custom pallettes which do not have white and black in these required positions."

[email protected]


[This message has been edited by spaceMan (edited 02-01-2001).]

[ltr3]

I tried this, and discovered it buggered up my pictures a little, I further had to manually edit the color table to ensure that white was first and black last, FYI!

But thanks!

[This message has been edited by ltr3 (edited 02-01-2001).]

Perhaps one could take this issue as a blessing in disguise, and a good impetus to switch to the (better-looking, patent-free, and frequently smaller) PNG format, abandoning lame 8-bit GIFs completely.

Especially animated GIFs.

bring on the animated PNG, i say. i think it's called MNG although no-one seems to support them yet.

bring on the animated PNG, i say. i think it's called MNG although no-one seems to support them yet.