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Adobe Illustrator CS3 Exception

There is one really nasty bug in Adobe Illustrator CS3 which manifests when trying to save a file. Everytime I tried this operation I was receiving an error telling me that Illustrator.exe has thrown exception and suggesting me to use debugger. After trying lots of stuff including installing all updates from Adobe I found the reason – my Print Spooler Service was configured to start manually and therefor not running.

So in summary: if you plan to save files from Adobe Illustrator CS3 keep your Print Spooler service running.

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IE6 PNG Transparency CSS background-repeat Fix

Couple of people around the forums and here commented that none of the current Internet Explorer 6 PNG scripts provide fix for the issue of using png image as CSS repeated background (background-repeat: repeat/repeat-x/repeat-y).

Therefor with no generic solution at this time I thought of three possible workarounds:

  1. Use sizingMethod=’scale’
  2. Use flash for rendering the png
  3. Make as much as needed areas and repeat with Javascript

Here I will explain the first one since it was the easiest to try.

The idea is very simple just use filter: progid: DXImageTransform.Microsoft.AlphaImageLoader(enabled=’true’, sizingMethod=’scale’, src=’the-image-you-want-to-repeat.png’ ) and make sure you properly apply the other CSS rules. This technique uses scaling instead of repeating but for shadows and other cool effects it is sufficient.

End result and demo following:

Preview for IE6 PNG background-repeat

For more info see the demo under Internet Explorer 6

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IE6 PNG Transparency Fix with Javascript

As always when I need to use some transparent images cursing Internet Explorer 6 is inevitable so i wrote a quick javascript fix. Again mootools was the preferred framework because the ease of use.

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// This Javascript is written by Peter Velichkov (www.creonfx.com)
// and is distributed under the following license : http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
// Use and modify all you want just keep this comment. Thanksfunction fixPNG(){
 
 $$('*').each(function(el){
 
 	var imgURL = el.getStyle('background-image');
 
 	var imgURLLength = imgURL.length;
 
 	if ( imgURL != 'none' && imgURL.substring(imgURLLength  - 5, imgURLLength  - 2) == 'png'){
 
 		el.setStyles({
 
 			background: '',
 
 			filter: "progid:DXImageTransform.Microsoft.AlphaImageLoader(enabled='true', sizingMethod='crop', src='" + imgURL.substring(5,imgURLLength  - 2) + "')"
 
 		});
 
 	};
 
if(el.getTag() == 'img' && el.getProperty('src').substring(el.getProperty('src').length  - 3) == 'png'){
 
 		var imgReplacer = new Element('input', {
 
 			'styles': {
 
 				'filter': "progid:DXImageTransform.Microsoft.AlphaImageLoader(enabled='true', sizingMethod='crop', src='" + el.getProperty('src') + "')",
 
 				'position': 'relative',
 
 				'background': 'transparent'
 
 			},
 
 			'title': el.getProperty('alt')
 
 		});
 
imgReplacer.setStyles(el.getStyles('padding','margin','border','height','width'));
 
 		imgReplacer.setProperties(el.getProperties('id','class'));
 
 		imgReplacer.disabled = true;
 
 		el.replaceWith(imgReplacer);
 
 	};
 
 });
 
}
 
if(window.ie6){
 
 window.addEvent('domready', fixPNG);
 
}

Fix description: First I’m looking for all tags that have background-image style and replace it with Microsoft AlphaImageLoader filter, then I search for all <img> tags and replace them with <input> (img src used for style background image again using the MS filter). I used input since it is inline element but still has height and width – like the img tag.

PS. If you use any links in area with PNG used for bg put the links in div with style=”position:relative” else they will not be clickable due to the MS filters

and as always example: IE6 PNG Transparency Fix with JavaScript