Re: Image sprites use cases

On Sep 6, 2009, at 8:46 AM, Boris Zbarsky wrote:

> Brad Kemper wrote:
>> No more so than any "new" image format, such as gradients
>
> Very true.  Are sprite use cases willing to not degrade in this way?
>
> I guess authors who care can continue using existing spriting  
> techniques until enough UAs support whatever the new thing is...

My thought is that if the new spriting technique degraded to showing a  
single image (a button, for instance, with no hover state, etc.), then  
that would be a pretty reasonable fallback. I think that would be the  
ideal to hope for. Thus, a multi-layer PNG that looks like a regular  
PNG of the top (or maybe bottom) layer would be good, if such a thing  
was possible.

Of course the whole ZIP archive idea sidesteps the problem by NOT  
being a new spriting thing, but rather just a new delivery method.  
That would be VERY backwards compatible, just not as nice, IMO, as  
multi-layer support.