[Clipart] Oodles of broken cliparts

Mon May 10 20:56:26 PDT 2010

Ideally, I would expect this issue will be fixed in time. It's starting to
get into a technical side which I don't understand, but as far as I do
understand I believe the problem lies in the external tool that we use to
convert from SVG to PNG. The converter doesn't read text very well, and so
makes a "broken" png file for viewing. The smaller cliparts and thumbnails
are PNG files that we see after conversion.

Why we don't just use the actual cliparts themselves, I don't know, since
the whole point of clipart is scalablity. The thumbnails keep refreshing
too, so I really can't see the point in using the svg > png converter. Just
seems like <del>double</del> triple handling and broadband waste to me,
since we have to download the thumbnail, and the detail png, AND the clipart
at the end of it. Can most browsers can handle svg nowdays? I know the four
I've tried haven't had any major problems in displaying the cliparts.
(Opera, Firefox, IE, Chrome).

Also to take into account is integration with Inkscape. Linux Inkscape has a
direct svg import from the OCAL library, so I know it affects these
decisions, but don't really know how they do. Jon would be the one to ask.

By the way, "it" hasn't necessarily been decided yet, I'm just stating what
I would like to see happen. Jon and Bassel are the ultimate drivers. I think
they listen though. :)

On Tue, May 11, 2010 at 1:53 PM, J. Alves <alvesjmp at gmail.com> wrote:

> Ah, OK. Since it is something that has been thought about and decided,
> then that's fine.
>
> And yes, I tried a couple of those "broken" ones and they did work
> (only when displayed at full size, by itself on a browser page),
> thanks.
>
> Now, the problem is: why don't the small versions work, and would it
> be feasible to fix that? I assumed the cliparts were broken and never
> bothered to click on the full sized ones. How many people are getting
> turned away when they see the broken thumbnail and assuming the design
> is bad or broken, I don't know. Might or not be a problem, hard to
> know...
>
> J
>
> On Mon, May 10, 2010 at 5:52 PM, chovynz <chovynz at gmail.com> wrote:
> > It's not necessarily a problem although I do see your point. (haha pun!)
> >
> > I think you'll find that when you look at the clipart IN detail (as in:
> > after you download it and click on the picture from the detail page, so
> that
> > you are only looking at the clipart itself), you will see that the
> browser
> > renders it correctly.
> >
> > I used to be quite hard on authors who uploaded unconverted text, however
> > I've had time to reflect, and in some cases it's actually useful to have
> > unconverted text i.e. a calendar. So that issue isn't resolved for me.
> > Yes/No could go either way, and I don't want to make it burdonsome for
> > uploaders, or users.
> >
> > The problem that I wish to see fixed is a way to contact authors, because
> > there is currently no way other than the comments, to contact them. This
> is
> > related to copyrighted clipart, as well as semi-"broken" clipart. As far
> as
> > I understand we could get by without having the SVG interpret text
> > correctly, however we cannot get by with copyrighted material. Simple
> matter
> > is, we need to be able to contact any author.
> >
> > And unfortunatly I don't yet know how to implement that, otherwise I
> > would've! :)
> >
> > @ Bassel, here's an idea, next time you need to do a change on the OCAL,
> can
> > I suggest you grab one of us who wants Aiki training, and step us through
> > doing that change? It may take more time, for them to do it with your
> > oversight, but the more experience we get on actually doing it, the more
> > useful we'll be to you, (instead of always going "Hey Bassel!!!") It's
> > possible that we may even screw up, but hey that's what backups are for
> > right? (You do have backups correct?) The more we screw up the better our
> > coding will be in the long run!
> >
> > On Tue, May 11, 2010 at 9:20 AM, J. Alves <alvesjmp at gmail.com> wrote:
> >>
> >> Hi,
> >>
> >> Nearly every time I visit OCAL's front page, I see this problem:
> >> people do not convert the text in their SVG to paths. So, it all shows
> >> as squares in my browser/OS (Firefox/Ubuntu, in this case, but also
> >> happens in other browsers). I don't know how it would look in a system
> >> that has the font that was used, but I'm supposing it looks fine, or
> >> these people would have noticed that squares there instead of the text
> >> they intended.
> >>
> >> So, my question/suggestion is: would it be possible for the SVG
> >> processing step that happens during upload to automatically REJECT an
> >> clipart that has unconverted text in it? (and tell the submitter what
> >> the problem was and how to solve it, of course) I don't know much
> >> about SVG, but it does not sound too difficult if certain tags are
> >> present and whatnot...
> >>
> >> Or is that too drastic or undesirable for some other reason? Either
> >> way, there must be a way to fix this problem. Just contacting the
> >> author and letting him/her know of the problem after the fact does not
> >> always work -- specially if the comments do not get emailed to the
> >> author, who might never see the comment.
> >>
> >> Cheers
> >> J
> >>
> >> --
> >> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> >> João Marcelo Pereira Alves (J) - Genomics, Molecular Phylogeny and
> >> Evolution
> >> Dept. Microbiology & Immunology - MCV/VCU - Richmond, VA, USA
> >> f. 1-804-828-3897 / 804-852-1234 - http://bioinfo.lpb.mic.vcu.edu
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> clipart mailing list
> >> clipart at lists.freedesktop.org
> >> http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/clipart
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > Cheers
> > Chovynz
> >
>
>
>
> --
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> João Marcelo Pereira Alves (J) - Genomics, Molecular Phylogeny and
> Evolution
> Dept. Microbiology & Immunology - MCV/VCU - Richmond, VA, USA
> f. 1-804-828-3897 / 804-852-1234 - http://bioinfo.lpb.mic.vcu.edu
>

-- 
Cheers
Chovynz
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/clipart/attachments/20100511/903af969/attachment.html>