IE6 Auto Image Resize

what does this mean for designers?

[knighty]

Just read this on the Microsoft Site, sounds a bit dodgy in terms of how you want images to look etc

"Auto Image Resize
You no longer need to scroll horizontally or vertically to view large pictures. If pictures are too large to display in the browser window, the new automatic picture resizing feature resizes the pictures automatically so they fit within the dimensions of the browser window. In addition, if you navigate to pictures that fit within the browser window and then you change the window dimensions, Internet Explorer automatically adjusts the pictures to fit the new window size. To prevent image distortion, Internet Explorer adjusts both the picture height and width, even if only a single dimension needs adjusting."

[sugarkane]

Hopefully there'll be a nice big button to turn this off. What about viewing detailed graphics (eg blueprints, circuit diagrams etc) that absolutely need to be at their intended size?

[Drastic]

>turn this off

Gawd I hope so. The last thing we need is MS throwing this into the mix. It is hard enough coding for various browsers and resolutions as it is.

Hopefully it'll be turned off by default.

[mivox]

Oh lord... what a mess. Auto-sizing anything is generally a bad thing for any designer.

However, I don't often use images that are going to be bigger than the browser window anyway. The load times on images that big would be excessive, so I don't think many people/websites will be affected.

What about viewing detailed graphics (eg blueprints, circuit diagrams etc) that absolutely need to be at their intended size?

Well, if this is only an IE feature, I'd assume most *really* important gfx will be saved to the user's hard-drive. You'd just have to make sure *not* to open them with IE... or print them out just to be safe.

[joshie76]

I suspect (kind of trusting I know ;)!) that this will only come into effect when an image is called directly by the browser, i.e. //nowhere.com/image.jpg, and not when it is called from a page in the <img> tag.

This makes auto resizing quite useful as it can be a real pain when you link to an graphic and it is 80 times bigger than your screen res (as long as we can turn it off easily)...

Josh

[Pat_Traynor]

I truly hope you're right about this feature working on image-only files, as opposed to html files with imbedded images. This would be a nightmare for those of us who have carefully designed graphics that fit seamlessly together.

And the ability to "turn it off" wouldn't make me sleep easier. 90% of the public doesn't change any of the browser settings. (Yes, I made up that statistic, but I stand by it. :-))

[seth_wilde]

This is nothing to worry about, it does resize images from an img tag, but the image has to be bigger than the browser, which is very rare. I had a difficult time even finding an image to test this function on. Also when an image is resized, if you roll over it, IE will give you the option of viewing it full size.

[joshie76]

Precisely, I can't really see how they could engineer it any other way. Particularly if (as should be the case) we specify the height and width attributes of the img tag.

Interesting statistic though - does anyone actually have any real published stats on this one?

[Pat_Traynor]

> This is nothing to worry about, it does resize images from an img tag, but the image has to be bigger than the browser, which is very rare.

What if the left edge of the image starts about 400px from the left edge of the browser and extends past the right edge of the browser? This is what concerns me.

[seth_wilde]

Pat_Traynor

From your description it sounds like the auto-resize should probably leave it alone. If you have a particular site in mind, you can drop me the url in StickyMail and I'll check it in ie6 to be sure.