ActiveX Plugin to Make IE5.5/IE6 Support PNG Alpha Transparency

January 18, 2004 2:48 PM

PNG and IE6. I seem to recall reading about an active x plugin that enabled IE5.5+ on PC to properly support alpha transparency in png files. After googling, I couldn't find one. I did find lots of work arounds and hacks that are ugly and difficult to implement. There must be a solution.
posted by Grod to (6 comments total)

Youngpup has the sleight snippet.
posted by X-00 at 3:12 PM on January 18, 2004

There's always this article at a list apart.
posted by Hackworth at 4:26 PM on January 18, 2004

i'm going to plug my site as an example of a site built using the ALA article Hackworth mentioned. as far as i know, it works pretty well in most browsers.
posted by lotsofno at 5:42 PM on January 18, 2004

I saw the ALA article, thanks. The thing is, I want to avoid all that and was hoping I'd be able to run an activeX control, or maybe require a small plugin to be downloaded, something to make IE work right. I know, its a lost cause, but a guy can dream.
posted by Grod at 7:18 PM on January 18, 2004

Dream away! There is a hack, and its simple. Basically, that site uses a javascript snippet that, when embedded in the HEAD portion of a page, causes that page to display PNGs with full alpha support. It sounds crazy, but its true. And it just makes you that much madder at Microsoft for not providing this functionality when the ability right there in the browser; MS just needs to switch it on.

I believe that the code is not actually given on the site- you have to look at the source of the "solution" page grab the code in situ. Grab everything between the
< !--[if gte ie 5.5000]>

...


< ![endif]-->

tags (inclusive). Hope this helps.
posted by gsteff at 7:34 PM on January 18, 2004

I asked this question on CSS Discuss last month and really wasn't satisfied when directed to the ALA article.

However, another poster directed me here,
and that worked out much better for me -- simpler to apply.
posted by weston at 11:30 PM on January 18, 2004