Miscellaneous Hacks - NoMoreGifs

I had been working on a style for my now defunt site, while developing it, since IE7 was final and PNG's are just too cool to pass up anymore. I found it a pain to re-write all of the vBulletin templates to use the .png extension on the images. Not to mention this would make upgrading a pain in the butt.

I had Matthew make me this snipet of code. I told him I would release it and he said its fine.

So to you I now give you the ability to not have to use gif's but png's in your image folders.

You're webserver must support custom error documents via htaccess.

Installation,
Edit htaccess file to give a full/proper url to your new 404.php document
Put both the htaccess file and the 404.php file in the base of you images folder.

I only offer support when I have time. This modification is otherwise unsupported, but working.


For style developers, if you wish to use this, please give credit where credit is due , a link back to this mod would be great.

[Zachery]

I'm not that motovated feldon ;p

[StGaensler]

I have two things to remark:

As you send a Location: header the Content-type: header doesn't matter as the browser makes a second request for the png file.

This second request takes some time so I suggest doing the "decision" directly on the server without the need of a second request. This only needs the Apache module mod_rewrite:

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteRule (.*)\.gif$ $1.png [NC,L]

Every non-existing gif file so gets redirected to a png file. I don't check if the png file exists but I think this doesn't matter

Stefan

[harakiri]

Thanks Stefan,

it feels "faster".

Regards,
Chris

[Zachery]

Originally Posted by StGaensler

I have two things to remark:

As you send a Location: header the Content-type: header doesn't matter as the browser makes a second request for the png file.

This second request takes some time so I suggest doing the "decision" directly on the server without the need of a second request. This only needs the Apache module mod_rewrite:

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteRule (.*)\.gif$ $1.png [NC,L]

Every non-existing gif file so gets redirected to a png file. I don't check if the png file exists but I think this doesn't matter

Stefan

I don't always replace all of the gif files, so I prefer my version.

[StGaensler]

Your version replaces all non existant gif files with png files - am I correct? Exactly the same does my code but without causing the second (unnecessary) request.

[harakiri]

Both versions doing the _same_ thing - but in different ways.

If you have mod_rewrite on your Apache, I think the solution by Stefan is better.. else Zacherys

[dannykilla]

will this work on 3.7.0?

[StGaensler]

Don't know why it shouldn't?

[dannykilla]

I am trying to get this to work on my board which is 3.7.2 and I have followed the instructions correctly and created a image called newthread.png and then uploaded it to the correct directory and then deleted the newthread.gif but when I refresh the page I just get text saying "post new thread" and no image?
I am running vB 3.7.2, PHP 5 and I have asked my host if I have the necessary setting that this hack/mod requires and then said YES?

Anyone help me out please?
Thanks
Danny

[Prezadent]

You can easily rename a .png to a .gif and have the .png display normally in all major browsers.

No need for this hack.