IE6 is a constant burden for web developers. It really is impressive to see how many ways it continues to aggravate. To put it lightly, it is the devil.
One common issue is the lack of support for transparency in images. Most web developers would prefer to use PNG images while dealing with transparency. Just about every browser, including later versions of IE, support transparency in this image format. With the exception of IE6. IE6 will display the PNG with gray where the transparency should be.
There are a number of ways to get around this. Such as the popular belated PNG script which applies a filter to the image to resolve the issue. One problem with this script is that visitors will still see gray until the script runs and re-renders the images, causing a flicker effect. There is also the PNG Alpha Fix script which takes a similar approach, but uses an htc file.
Sometimes it's easier to use GIF images to get things looking right in IE6. Yet, IE6 has its issues with this format as well. When rendering the image it will decide if pixels are completely opaque or completely transparent. If you want certain pixels to have 50% transparency you will run into this problem. It causes the images to look blocky, as if traced.
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Transparent GIFs in IE6
4 Comments Posted on October 7th, 2009Read More ›