by Joyce Kohl
April 7, 1998
On my Yorkie's Web site (Yorkies Dot Com), visitors may apply for a "Yorked by Mandy" award. If their pages qualify, then I give them permission to grab the image of their choice. The image is usually in JPG format, but can also be in GIF format. Once the image is actually up, then I add the the URL to the recipient list. Last weekend when checking the URL before adding the link, I discovered many of the graphics appeared to be broken and did not appear in Netscape Communicator. A quick view of the source revealed several images with the extension of "ART."
What is ART?
I began searching the Internet for ART. Nothing turned up. I then searched
graphics programs and read the features list for each and found none included ART.
The next step was inquiring of the webmaster using ART images why she wasn't using
the original JPG. Her answer: "The program I use on AOL, pp2, converts the
images to ART. I've asked other AOL members about the images and they see them just
fine. It must be your browser that has the problem." Well! The
nerve, I thought! So, okay, I quickly swallowed my pride and off I went to check
her site with AOL. Sure enough, every single graphic showed up. Hmmmmm.... I
then tried using Microsoft Internet Explorer. All the graphics were visible with
it, too. Knowing that AOL also uses MSIE as its internal browser, then a plethora of
questions began racing around in my head.
Where is ART Information?
After searching every Keyword I could think of on AOL, I fired off another message to the
webmaster of the "ART infested" site asking if she could point me to something
about ART extensions. Her answer: "I've only been on the Internet about 8
months and I know nothing about formats." *groan* That added insult to my already
injured ego. I was NOT giving up! The information HAD to be available
somewhere . . . but WHERE?
Eureka!
Back to AOL, I used the Find option, again typed in anything that might be a Keyword.
My persistence finally paid off. In an area about viewers, up popped a
selection about an ART viewer. Wow! I clicked on it and thought for sure I
was about to enter a new realm of information. Hopefully there would be an
introduction, some hyperlinks, a tutorial, some graphics programs to create ART files, and
there would surely be something to tell me what the acronym meant.
ART Is Proprietary AOL Format!
Less than a half page print-out is all the available information on ART. The first
sentence threw me for a loop - then I began to laugh. I have this egotistical
attitude about knowing more than the average person about HTML and image formats.
Yeah! Right. I was back to the level of being a novice again. As
all little good novices do, I accepted this newly found "discovery" as a
learning experience to add to my own internal knowledge base.
The reason for the ART files on the site mentioned earlier: When an AOL user clicks on the Save As feature, the default format is ART. Therefore, all the graphics saved this way will be converted to AOL's proprietary ART format. Simple.
Conclusion
Smaller images result in faster loading of Web sites. Knowing that a majority of
the users these days are using Internet Explorer and the fact that AOL now boasts a
membership of 10 million subscribers, maybe saving images from AOL into ART format may be
worth the time and trouble. You be the judge.
JPG [16,418
bytes]
ART Image[5,642 bytes]
Though the above ART image is MUCH smaller than the JPG image, and when viewing ART on a Web site I didn't notice any distortion or change in colors, there is a definite difference when viewed together side by side. The advantage of ART would be if you have limited space for pages on your server, but the disadvantages are plainly visible plus the fact that not all browsers can see the ART images.
Copyright © 1998 by Joyce Kohl
"Go Inside" is a David Boles Trademark