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CIF : Coding Standards : Avoidance of Images
Images interfere with resizing, eat bandwidth, may be difficult to view on monitors only offering 16 colors, will be invisible if someone is surfing the net with automatic graphics loading disabled, and will be invisible if the location of the graphics directory is not coordinated with the location of the CIF HTML directory (which may be a cloned instance).
- Use of embedded images within <BODY> content is forbidden unless there is only one image on the page and the purpose of the CIF page is to display that image, e.g., to present a graph.
- If it is necessary to display very detailed images or very large images (e.g., greater than 15K) it may be best to simply provide a link to a related image which must reside within the same subdirectory as the CIF module which calls the image.
- The preferred image file type for CIF images is GIF for diagrammatic images (4-bit, up to sixteen colors), or JPG for more complex images and photographs (24-bit, up to 16.7 million colors, recommended maximum compression of 15%). If either format render the images adequately, use the format which produces the smaller file size.
- The image tage itself should include <IMG="whatever.gif" WIDTH="100" HEIGHT="50" ALT="[up to 30 characters of image description]" HSPACE="6" VSPACE="6" BORDER="0" ALIGN="RIGHT"> for complete specification of a typical image with minimal space being consumed.
- Generally speaking, images should not be used as links unless the link leads to a larger version of the image.
- Web desigers can give visual appeal to CIF text content by developing custom frameset viewports which may contain graphics around the perimeter of the inset CIF text.
- The <BODY> tag may not contain a background image specification.
- Visual elements such as list element bullets should be rendered using standard HTML commands, not through use of embedded images.
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