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 bandwidth 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.