Hi there,

When I open Coffeecup VSD (5.9.4) up to simply start a new website, single-colour page background - and then via the 'Picture' tool try to import a PNG file - the program seems not to recognise these as valid!

Effective rendering of PNG transparency is critical to me for a web design application.

I did do a forum search - and this yielded the result that Coffeecup VSD does not (as at Feb 2008) support PNG. But then other posts later on seem to suggest that people regularly use PNG with Coffeecup VSD?!

Is mine not the latest version (is paid-for)? Has the update occurred?

Many thanks in advance for your collective help,


Arif

Hi Arif,
I've not had a lot of luck with VSD and png.
I always use jpg.
Also, as far as VSD, I do not believe transparency works in VSD at this time.
I always have to match the back ground color(s) to make the appearance of transparency. It's a bumber, but that's my only issue with VSD.
If I'm wrong someone will set this straight.
rodgw

Thanks for the reply Rodgw,

Tell me about it - the amount of time I've spent on other applications thinking of workarounds, using colour-pickers to exactly match background colours, placing buttons with shadows on a plain-coloured band, because without PNG support - the shadows will not render, etc, etc.

Still want to know if that is the definitive position as regards VSD and PNG. Rather disappointing if it is - and will have to look into Stormdance's Antenna to see if they've seen fit to support such a powerful and popular image-format!

If it weren't for this oversight - Coffeecup's VSD would've been the answer to all of my problems!

(I currently design websites professionally using Moonfruit's Sitemaker. Was looking into Coffeecup as a way in to 'grown-up' website design - where at least you have to FTP upload, and the like. The ability to back up the sites is key - hence my looking at alternatives.)




Arif

Hi Arif,

I just tried using .png file, with and without transparency in VSD and had no trouble at all.
What program are you using to create/save the .png files?
Do you have spaces or special characters (%*#@) in your file names?
Have you tried downloading a .png file from the Internet and using that, in case it's something to do with your image editor?

In your VSD program, click 'help' at the top. Then click on 'About'. That will display your version number. I think the latest download is 5.9.4 If that one does not support .png, then I'm pretty sure the next one will, so be patient.

Have you sent this question to CoffeeCup support? www.coffeecup.com/help login and send a support ticket. They will have the answers for you.

Almost a year later, I'm experiencing similar difficulties with version 6.0.

I get the transparency, but linking is not working.

No special characters, and I removed the spaces from the png files but not yet the other files. Downloaded a png with only one word for the name and it surprisingly worked as a link in VSD 6.0 preview mode, but not at the url.

I have put in a request at the support link you gave--thanks for that tip!!!

But I really do need an answer NOW, not days from now on Monday or later when the office opens again. Have any of the users had success with this process???

One good bit of news is that this has worked once before on an old template. Only once, as in with only one link even though all others have been set up identically as I far as I can tell. Very strange indeed.

Hey everyone!
The only thing I don't like about PNG files is that when you are building your site there is a solid color back ground so you have to go and preview it to really set the pictures exactly as you want it.
I have three diffrent colors for my back ground so when i place my pictures i have to have a transparent back ground. If only there was another way to do this that would be awesome!
Well you all have a merry Xmas..
Cya!

Hiya Diane,

I'm entirely confused about your problem to be honest. I am not sure why making them transparent is an issue since that's usually the best way to make sure that no matter what background your site has the graphic will work. You can do this with .gif's also which will optimize a little better than the .png does. Other than that, I guess I'm curious as to exactly what it is you're wanting to do?

Wolverana, I don't mean to answer for Jennifer, but it seems to me what she is saying is that transparency works, but the links attached to the transparent files do not work when she publishes her site to the web (they work only in preview mode). Honestly I have no idea what could be causing this, if it works in preview mode then my first suggestion would be to entirely delete the site from your hosting server and then re-upload your web site Jennifer. That way you know for a fact that the site you're seeing in preview mode is the same site that is being uploaded. Sometimes we think a site is uploading properly to the web but it is not. Also, be sure that you are clearing your cache (in Firefox just hold the "shift" key as you refresh the page), that way you know you are viewing the current version of your site online. To give you more feedback I would have to take a look at your web site and the .vsd file itself. Of course this is something that CC tech support will gladly do for you as well. :-)

No problem Chad, you use VSD and I surely don't, so don't worry about me ever taking offense to answering something I commented on Not to mention now I think I understand what she meant