January 14, 2008
Handbook Note 78/113: PNG Graphic Format
Note 78 of 113 of Delphi 2007 Handbook
Note 78: Support for the PNG format in Delphi is available using the free PNG Components (http://www.thany.org/article/32/PngComponents). This library has even a custom ImageList that makes PNG images available to buttons, menu items, and the like.
This blog post is part of my "113 Delphi 2007 Handbook Notes" blogging project, to promote my new Delphi book.
Update (Jan 14th)
As some blog readers pointed out (see below) the URL changed to http://www.thany.org/article/18/Delphi_components and these PNG components seem not to be in a very good shape. Alternative proposals?
10 Comments
Handbook Note 78/113 PNG Graphic Format
The components have been discontinued. The link you provided is broken. See the internet archive for an older version of the page http://web.archive.org/web/20070528013220/ www.thany.org/article/32/PngComponents and this page for download: http://www.thany.org/article/18/Delphi_componentsComment by Thomas Mueller [http://www.dummzeuch.de] on January 14, 13:20
Handbook Note 78/113 PNG Graphic Format
Seems to have been pulled. Page is empty, title just says "Thany.org - null"Comment by delphi guy on January 14, 13:23
Handbook Note 78/113 PNG Graphic Format
PngComponents are built using PNGDelphi (which in turn uses ZLib), so if you just want simple PNG stuff, you can use that. But I love TPngImagelist too much...Comment by Roddy on January 14, 14:22
Handbook Note 78/113 PNG Graphic Format
They might be discontinued, but all works like a charm for me with D2007. Nevertheless, as pointed out before, the installation wasn't really easy.Comment by Adrien Reboisson on January 14, 14:34
Handbook Note 78/113 PNG Graphic Format
Another Delphi component for PNG is pngdelphi. I have used PNG Delphi from SourceForge http://pngdelphi.sourceforge.net/ Latest version is from August 2006, so fairly up to date. pngdelphi compiles with Delphi 2007 on XP and Vista. Regards martinalexComment by martinalex [http://tagosphere.blogspot.com/] on January 14, 14:47
Handbook Note 78/113 PNG Graphic Format
Thanks to all of you for the feedback.Comment by Marco Cantù [http://www.marcocantu.com] on January 14, 16:38
Handbook Note 78/113 PNG Graphic Format
But what is better: PNG or JPG ? what is lighter and faster to use ?Comment by JL on January 15, 12:19
Handbook Note 78/113 PNG Graphic Format
They are two different animals. PNG is for graphics (like gif) and jpeg is for photos and the like. Google the formats for more info.Comment by on January 15, 15:04
Handbook Note 78/113 PNG Graphic Format
"JPEG is for photos" only because it can achieve better compression due to its lossy compression algorithm, and therefore useful to shorten downloads time and storage space used. PNG uses a lossless algorithm and thereby leads to larger files, although it yelds better result when the image contains also text and other graphical items - where JPEG can introduce artifacts. JPEG is also not suitable if the image needs further manipulation. That's why, for example, TIFF or proprietary formats like PSD are used professionaly, or advanced cameras export data in RAW format and not JPEG. While PNG could be used, it was designed with "the internet" in mind, and lacks some advanced features, i.e. supporting color spaces different from RGB, or the EXIF data. The proper file format for an image file has to be selected considering the image to be stored, and its use. That said, because Vista icons uses a PNG compressed format, I guess Delphi should support PNG natively, it's time...Comment by Luigi D. Sandon on January 15, 15:48
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Handbook Note 78/113 PNG Graphic Format
Comment by Roddy on January 14, 13:12