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What exactly is stopping you from using pngs as backgrounds? I use them quite often on XP.

If you read the article you'll see that even JPEG files get converted to BMP for use as a wallpaper. So you're not using a PNG as a wallpaper, your PNG is being converted into a BMP.

When Microsoft invents an 99% PNG compatible format, you'll get a native 99% .png wallpaper support.

When Microsoft invents an 99% PNG compatible format, you'll get a native 99% .png wallpaper support.

They wouldn't ever. They'd just define a new format (say XMG (eXtensible Microsoft Graphic) ) and it will be propritary, buggy, low performance and not do what people want. Well that's what experience leads me to believe anyway

Stephen

Though both JPG and PNG are supported types for wallpapers in XP, IIRC the formats are converted to BMPs internally because that API only supports BMPs. I'll post a link if I can dig up the info.

//Though both JPG and PNG are supported types for wallpapers in XP, IIRC the formats are converted to BMPs internally because that API only supports BMPs.//

This is way behind the times, isn't it?

KDE will not only support PNG & JPG for wallpaper, as of version 3.4 (or later) KDE supports SVG wallpapers.

http://dot.kde.org/1103326589/

http://dot.kde.org/1106477233/

Apparently Windows still has a great deal of catching up to do.

Why did this comment get modded down? It is surely on topic.

Edited 2006-10-30 02:36

The article was a bit unclear on that, which is unfortunate, because it's pretty much the crucial piece of info that's needed to understand why the article describes a difficult task. Although, given that they allowed such a bubblegum-and-bailing-twine solution to remain in place for so long, I have a hard time feeling much sympathy.

//The article was a bit unclear on that, which is unfortunate, because it's pretty much the crucial piece of info that's needed to understand why the article describes a difficult task. Although, given that they allowed such a bubblegum-and-bailing-twine solution to remain in place for so long, I have a hard time feeling much sympathy.//

It isn't a difficult task. There are at least three other Windows managers that have far better support for wallpaper formats than the kludges in Windows.

There seems to be something political in this. First lack of PNG support, now lack of SVG support throughout Windows.

PNG is an ISO standard (ISO/IEC 15948:2003):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Png

SVG is an open standard promoted by W3C consortium:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svg

Windows has very poor support for both.

We seem to be seeing a pattern here.

It seems like Ogg vorbis support in WMP revisited.

One has to ask why Windows devs refuse to support open standards.

It isn't a difficult task. There are at least three other Windows managers that have far better support for wallpaper formats than the kludges in Windows.

Yes, I'm aware of that - I'm posting from BeOS, which has had the ability to use standard image file formats as backgrounds for at least the 7-8 years I've been using it (and possibly longer).

The "difficult taks" I was referring to was the task described in the article - attempting to clean up Vista's handling of background images before the release date.

"The "difficult taks" I was referring to was the task described in the article - attempting to clean up Vista's handling of background images before the release date."

Supporting decent graphics file formats is not a difficult task. It has already been done, and the code to support it is open.

http://www.w3.org/Graphics/SVG/
http://svgi.org/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libpng
http://www.libpng.org/pub/png/libpng.html
http://www.libpng.org/pub/png/libpng-1.2.5-manual.html

A lot of help is available.

One suspects the real problem (for something like libpng) is this attribute that it has: 'OS: cross platform'. One suspects this is the only reason why Windows doesn't support it.

It seems that only Windows developers are shy of supporting open standards in graphics and multimedia formats.

Is it because of a desire to lock-in Windows users to non-open formats, one wonders?

Supporting decent graphics file formats is not a difficult task.

No, supporting decent file formats is not a difficult task. But that's not what I was referring to, as that's not the task the article describes.

//No, supporting decent file formats is not a difficult task. But that's not what I was referring to, as that's not the task the article describes.//

Yes it is. The article talks about the kludges they had to include because the API for the Windows background supports only .bmp format. They had problems scaling .bmp to the desired range of screen size & resolution. Such problems are best addressed by including better support for other formats, and not by the kludge approach they did take which excludes such support for other formats within the API.

As the very first post in this thread asks ... "When will we have native .png wallpaper support?"

Not with Vista, it would seem.

Please note, including support for open formats across Windows would not be difficult at all. There is ample support for designing such support. The reason why Windows lacks support for formats such as these is that Microsoft have deliberately left it out.

Think about that for just a moment.

Edited 2006-10-30 06:13

One has to ask why Windows devs refuse to support open standards."

Because they didn't "invent" them? :-)

OGG/Vorbis support, standard RockRidge extension to ISO 9660, PostScript for printer output... there are so many standards around the computer world, but most of them you'll not be able to find in MICROS~1 products (by default). Sad...

//Because they didn't "invent" them? :-)//

I don't think so. Windows does include a lot of things that Windows didn't invent, including for example the very concept of a mouse-driven GUI.

//OGG/Vorbis support, standard RockRidge extension to ISO 9660, PostScript for printer output... there are so many standards around the computer world, but most of them you'll not be able to find in MICROS~1 products (by default). Sad...//

You are of course correct. For that you got modded down. I have modded you back up again for a bit of balance.

Edited 2006-10-30 03:47

"//Because they didn't "invent" them? :-)//

I don't think so. Windows does include a lot of things that Windows didn't invent, including for example the very concept of a mouse-driven GUI. "

Yes, I know that, but maybe some MICROS~1 fanboys have to be remebered the truth.

With this comment I liked to state the fact, thatt you hardly can find open standards inside MICROS~1 products (by default). That would give the user the possibility of using data produced on a non-"Windows" machine - or even transfer their "Windows" generated data to another platform. It seems they can't resist to block such things.

But to come back to the topic: I like the concept of user (!) configuring the look of the GUI. Surely, this concept isn't new, but it may be a way for "Vista" to gain more acceptance among the users who don't like the default GUI settings and themes.

It would be great to have a "TweakUI" included in Vista as it is known to the obsoleted "Windows" types (95, 98 etc.). Why should only the programmers ad Redmond have "cool" GUIs while the end user have to use the childish one? :-)

"You are of course correct. For that you got modded down."

Wow... that's discussion culture... remebers me to... no, I won't say. :-)

It seems like Ogg vorbis support in WMP revisited.

One has to ask why Windows devs refuse to support open standards.

No one gives a damn about Ogg Vorbis or SVG outside of the Slashdot crowd. There are tens of thousands of file formats out there. Why should Microsoft waste its time supporting those that no one uses?

//No one gives a damn about Ogg Vorbis or SVG outside of the Slashdot crowd. There are tens of thousands of file formats out there.//

Your question is misplaced.

The thing that Ogg Vorbis, PNG and SVG all have in common is that they are open and cross-platform formats. They are all perfectly good formats, and arguably better than competing formats.

//Why should Microsoft waste its time supporting those that no one uses?//

More to the point - why doesn't Microsoft support these formats? IMO the answer is perfectly clear - Microsoft have a huge aversion to supporting any formats that could possibly give their end users a cross-platform "out", an escape-route if you will away from Microsoft platforms.

Put it this way, and ask yourself a far more relevant question as an end-user of Microsoft software - "Why is Microsoft so reluctant to let my documents created on Windows be saved in any sort of cross-platform open format"?

Edited 2006-10-30 03:58

PNG is supported in Vista. Can't be sure about SVG.

If someone wants to get either of these working, there's an extension mechanism within Windows. For Ogg Vorbis, you just need a DirectShow Filter (just like DivX or ffdshow). And for SVG, there's something called WIC (Windows Imaging Components), through which you can write a codec to decompress any image format you want.

As far as I can tell, you guys want Micros~1 to spend money on supporting standards that harm their business in real ways even after they have opened up APIs for third parties to implement them. If Ogg Vorbis and SVG support were such big deals for you, why wouldn't you write or pay someone to write open-source decoders for windows?

//PNG is supported in Vista.//

Versions of Internet Explorer up to and including 6 do not support native alpha-channel transparency. Internet Explorer 7.0 has addressed the PNG-rendering issues, and now displays them correctly. AFAIK, that is about the extent of it. PNG files still can't be used fully for backgrounds, and aren't fully supported in Office.

//Can't be sure about SVG. //

http://forums.microsoft.com/TechNet/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=602714&Sit...
"Unfortunately, neither Vista nor IE7 will include SVG support."

//As far as I can tell, you guys want Micros~1 to spend money on supporting standards that harm their business in real ways even after they have opened up APIs for third parties to implement them.//

These formats are International Standards and Web Standards. Only Microsoft does not support them. On the face of it, this has the strong appearance that it is Microsoft's deliberate policy that open formats (especially emerging ones) will not be supported natively by Windows or Office. On the face of it, this has the strong appearance that Microsoft is actively trying to make it so that such open formats do not succeed.

//If Ogg Vorbis and SVG support were such big deals for you, why wouldn't you write or pay someone to write open-source decoders for windows?//

There are open-source codecs for Ogg Vorbis for Windows. The problem is that they are not included with Windows, and the default message that appears in WMP when you try to play such a file gives one the impression that Windows cannot support this format. This is not the case, Windows can support the format, it is just that Microsoft refuse to.

http://windowsxp.mvps.org/ogg.htm

Oh please.
Go look at .NET's graphics support and you'll see that PNG is not only supported, it's the preferred graphics file format.

If what you say were true, Microsoft wouldn't support png, gif, jpeg, mp3, aac, h.264 (the latter two are natively supported by Zune), etc, since Microsoft didn't invent those either.

And to answer your last question, "Why is Microsoft so reluctant to let my documents created on Windows be saved in any sort of cross-platform open format?", how does Windows prevent saving documents in cross-platform formats? Does OpenOffice not work on Windows now? Does Windows block all attempts to save or load RTF (a cross-platform format created by Microsoft)? How about ASCII, can Windows apps no longer load/save ASCII files? Give me a break.

Considering Microsoft is supporting gazillions of old unused formats, it's weird that Microsoft do not support formats used by millions everyday.

Especially when they point to millions of users complaining about the scaling goof.

it's weird that Microsoft do not support formats used by millions everyday.

A) Do you have any evidence that Ogg Vorbis and SVG are "used by millions everyday"? If so, are a substantial number of these "millions" going to be using Windows or sending these files to users of Windows?

B) Do other operating systems support these formats out of the box? Does Linux (not value-added distributions such as Ubuntu or Debian, but Linux proper)? Does OS X[1]? Does OpenBSD? Does FreeBSD? Does NetBSD? All of those operating systems require 3rd party components to view/play such content. That is precisely the same case as with Windows.

[1]Leopard should have SVG support when it is released next year but the current version of OS X, Tiger, does not.

See answer here (must have been mentally sleeping):

http://osnews.com/permalink.php?news_id=16340&comment_id=176893

A) Yes and yes and perhaps (unfortunately). A few million users are nothing in reality. Consider the total number of XP-users and take something like .01% of that.

B) What is Linux proper? Are we talking the kernel only, or the contents of a standard distribution, or a minimal LinuxFromScratch installation? There is no such thing as Linux proper.

And yes, OpenBSD, NetBSD and FreeBSD supports Ogg Vorbis and SVG out of the box.
And yes, it's done through 3rd party components. However, the issue is not whether support is through 3rd party components. The issue is whether or not to ship with support for these standards out-of-the-box, either through homewritten codecs and libraries or through 3rd party codecs and libraries. Windows do not ship with such support, while Linux, *BSD, Syllable and several extreme hobbyist OS'es do.

Windows does have support for open standards (incl. SVG - to some extent), but not out of the box. Personally I don't think they can include 3rd party codecs without getting in trouble (I can almost already hear certain companies whining about it).

A) Yes and yes

Evidence?

B) What is Linux proper? Are we talking the kernel only?

Yes. That's what Linux is, isn't it?

And yes, OpenBSD, NetBSD and FreeBSD supports Ogg Vorbis and SVG out of the box.

I'm running OpenBSD right now. I have FreeBSD on my other machine. Please tell me how I can play Ogg Vorbis files and watch SVG animations "out of the box", i.e., without installing additional packages or ports.

Edited 2006-10-30 17:01

IIRC in win 9x, jpg wallpapers were only possible with "Active Desktop." I don't remember anything like that for XP though.

PNG would be nice,in particular for computer generated images as the OP mentions. Hard edges and solid colors especially are best served with a lossless format. So are we sure Vista can't do png? I find that rather hard to believe.

Of course Vista can make PNGs into wallpapers (it works the exact same way as BMPs and JPGs. But it seems to convert them internally into JPEGs, the same as pre-Vista Windows convert any wallpaper into uncompressed BMP.

So this wouldn't be a real feature :-(.

Having every picture converted into a _lossy_ format is a really bad idea!

//PNG would be nice,in particular for computer generated images as the OP mentions. Hard edges and solid colors especially are best served with a lossless format. So are we sure Vista can't do png? I find that rather hard to believe.//

For "drawings" (ie. 'computer generated images' as opposed to digital photographs) for wallpapers, a scalable vector image format is better than a raster format. With a scalable vector image format you can get a small file size and good quality and at the same time achieve independence from screen resolution and size.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_wallpaper#Formats
"Some desktop systems, such as Mac OS (version 8.6 or later), KDE (version 3.4 or later), and GNOME, support vector wallpapers (PICT in Mac and SVG in KDE and GNOME). This has the advantage that a single file may be used for screens of any size, or stretched across several screens, without loss of quality."

Edited 2006-10-30 02:34

//mac os 9 can use more image formats

png jpg bmp gif pict psd qtif sgi tga tiff +more//

Does the tetris game work for you?

http://www.croczilla.com/svg/samples/svgtetris/svgtetris.svg

Imagine that - an animated game implemented in an image format!

Edited 2006-10-30 11:47

works without problems

//The technical reason behind all this is that Microsoft's Operating System is really an outdated mess; the amount of ugly Hungarian Notation C++ code and weird API calls they have there is amazing.//

All the more reason to shun Vista then, one would logically surmise.

//Windows Vista could be a nice and very useful desktop, if they only played better with the rest of the crowd.//

But they don't, and so it isn't nice at all.

BTW, have you read what Microsoft think are reasonable terms for people to use their new software?

http://www.regdeveloper.co.uk/2006/10/29/microsoft_vista_eula_analy...

Unbelievable hubris, is it not?

BTW, have you read what Microsoft think are reasonable terms for people to use their new software?
http://www.regdeveloper.co.uk/2006/10/29/microsoft_vista_eula_analy.....
Unbelievable hubris, is it not?

As usual the Register gets it wrong. The best they could come up with is a benchmarking clause that has been around for years (check any version of .NET), is not specific to Vista, and is similar to clauses in several non-MS products. And Virtualization is not banned. You need an additional license for the VM instance unless you are running Ultimate Edition (which allows you to use the same license for the installed and VM instances) or Enterprise (which gives you the right to run 4 seperately licensed VM instances on the same computer).

//As usual the Register gets it wrong.//

You think this story was the Register?

http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2006/10/29/microsoft_vista_eula_an...
http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=7075
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20061019/102225.shtml
http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=35108
http://www.informationweek.com/industries/showArticle.jhtml?article...
http://www.windowsitpro.com/Windows/Article/ArticleID/93904/93904.h...
http://www.windowsitpro.com/mobile/pda/Article.cfm?ArticleID=93937&...
http://weblog.infoworld.com/gripeline/archives/2006/10/a_vista_of_l...
http://www.informationweek.com/blog/main/archives/2006/10/what_do_y...
http://blogs.zdnet.com/hardware/index.php?p=118
http://weblog.infoworld.com/virtualization/archives/2006/10/the_tru...
http://blogs.zdnet.com/hardware/index.php?p=128
http://www.dabcc.com/article.aspx?id=2816
http://www.bitsofnews.com/content/view/4264/44/

Microsoft has a lot bigger PR disaster on its hands than just the Register.

Edited 2006-10-30 13:42

Microsoft has a lot bigger PR disaster on its hands than just the Register.

Whatever. There are other news orgs and actual users that don't have a problem. Many of the articles about the horrors of WGA/activation are pure speculation and mirror what was said about XP prior to its release, yet it is now the dominant client OS. Many of the virtualization stories were countered with clarifications shortly after they were published. Ed Bott has several non-alarmist articles on ZD.

Most shouting gloom and doom make up a minority of the customer base (some don't even use Windows, or at least claim not to do so), shout doom and gloom with each release, then move on to something else after launch. It's a cycle that repeats with every release. This pretty much sums it up:
http://www.istartedsomething.com/20061017/dont-need-windows/

Of course XP is the dominant Client OS (what else, considering the weakness of controlling the market mechanisms). But that doesn't change the fact that many users are sick and tired of the MS EULA and WGA.

The WGA is even illegal in certain european countries.

Not again... *sigh*
. o O ( Eggman on the run )

I think you've got it. The CoreImage-like API is Windows Imaging Components. There is also a hardware-accelerated image pipeline for doing all this scaling and stuff (which is used by the Photogallery--mentioned on the Shell blog). Problem is, this stuff needs time to be well-tested and baked in, so IE and Office, and others are still using the old GDI+ way of doing things. Also, the security implications of new image processing code are serious. I don't expect the new systems to be used until at least next release (Vienna), if then.

Adding to the above, the main issue isn't the API used for displaying background images. It's the different processing steps that each application uses before displaying the image.

Each path (Explorer, Photo Gallery, Control Panel, IE, etc.) performed their own processing steps and had their own scaling algorithms that they used prior to displaying the image on the desktop. Control Panel's JPEG scaling algorithm was not of sufficient quality and produced visible artifacts in some instances. The other paths each used different scaling implementations so they didn't suffer from this issue. The fix was to use the same scaling algorithm that the Control Panel path used for bitmaps, converting the JPEGs to 24-bit before sending them through the bitmap scaler.