wml::des::imgdot(3)						     EN Tools						       wml::des::imgdot(3)

NAME

       wml::des::imgdot - 1pt Dot-Images for Webdesign

SYNOPSIS

	#use wml::des::imgdot

	<: $file = &imgdot($base, $x, $y, $c, $r, $g, $b, $transp, $format); :>

	<imgdot [attributes]>

DESCRIPTION

       Currently (as of HTML 3.2 and 1997 ;_) webdesigners use two commonly known tricks for creating their layout on webpages: HTML tables and
       so-called 1pt Dot-Images.  The first one is nicely supported by the WML tag "<grid>" (see wml::des::grid(3) for details), the latter is
       supported by this "<imgdot>" tag.

       The usual purpose of this tag is to create a transparent PNG or GIF image with a physical size of 1x1 points and a corresponding "<img>"
       tag which includes this image with appropriate "width" and "height" attributes. The visual result is a invisible reserved space of size
       "width"X"height".  Alternatively this tag can create the image with the requested size instead of scaling the 1pt image (see the "noscale"
       attribute below). This approach is more safe (all browsers support this) but wastes bandwith and increases page load time.

ATTRIBUTES

       base
	   Usually the created images are named imgdot-XxY-rrggbb.png where "XxY" is the dimension of the image and "rrggbb" the used color (or
	   `"transp"' for transparent). When you use a "base=foo" attribute, then the resulting files are named foo.imgdot-XxY-rrggbb.gif.
	   Actually you can even use a complete filename including a directory prefix, i.e. when you use "base=../../common/foo" attribute, then
	   the PNG images are created as ../../common/foo.imgdot-XxY-rrggbb.png.

	   And for most flexibility when no base is specified and the variable "IMGDOT_BASE" is defined (usually from within a .wmlrc file via
	   "-DIMGDOT_BASE~path/to/imgdot/dir/base") it is used.  Use this feature to redirect the created images to a particular directory.

	   You may also use the variable "IMAGE_BASE" which defines in a single line all base names for images generated by WML.

       format
	   By default, GIF images are generated. This attribute lets you use an alternate image format (actually only PNG and GIF are recognized).
	   You may also change the default format with the variable "IMAGE_FORMAT".

       width
	   Specifies the width (x-dimension) of the reserved space in pixel. Default is 1 pixel.

       height
	   Specifies the height (y-dimension) of the reserved space in pixel. Default is 1 pixel.

       color
	   Sets the color of the image. Default is transparent, i.e. no color. In fact, this is not true, transparency is rendered by choosing a
	   color which is made transparent, which is white by default.	Prepending an hyphen to the "color" attribute sets the color of the
	   transparent color.

       align
	   Sets the alignment of the image. Default is `"bottom"'. This alignment is used for the "align" attribute of the inserted "<img>" tag.

       noscale
	   Indicates if the image should be created with 1pt in size and scaled online by the browser (default) or should be created with the
	   correct physical size (this option).

       :img:ATTR=STR
	   The ``ATTR=STR'' pairs are passed along to the "<img>" HTML tag.

AUTHOR

	Ralf S. Engelschall
	rse@engelschall.com
	www.engelschall.com

	Denis Barbier
	barbier@engelschall.com

REQUIRES

	Internal: P1, P2, P3

SEE ALSO

       HTML <"img"> tag.

EN Tools							    2014-04-16						       wml::des::imgdot(3)