set as background

[[wicked]]

Hi all,

Please accept my appol's if this is in the wrong section but..

I want to load a small number of images(thumbnils) on my site, approx 10 of about 100 x 100 but when the surfer right clicks one and
"saves as background"(wallpaper) it sets at the right size of that persons desktop.

would it work if I uploaded the 800 x 600 images and just make the thumbnail 200 x 200? or would I need a script? Does anyone know where I can get a script like this if needed?

Thanks in advance.

[Twey]

<img src="foo.jpg" height="200" width="200"/>
The browser samples it into the correct size. It still downloads the full image, though, so "set as background" should still work.

[mwinter]

<img src="foo.jpg" height="200" width="200"/>

I would recommend against this approach, especially if these images have a large file size.

Thumbnails should be small, load quickly, and show enough detail so that the user can understand what the full image looks like. Given that browsers resize images badly, you won't acheive the latter and essentially forcing a user to download data that they couldn't care less about is very rude (would you want to download ten full-size images when perhaps only one is of interest?).

Finally, if you have a limited bandwidth allowance (and even many users do, don't forget), this isn't a particularly clever idea.

Mike

[Twey]

I did think of that, but I don't know any other way of fulfilling:

but when the surfer right clicks one and
"saves as background"(wallpaper) it sets at the right size of that persons desktop.

Short of using the above approach, I would advise having differently-sized thumbnails, and linking the user to a larger image.

[jscheuer1]

What if the user has larger or smaller than 800x600 screen? It won't be pretty and you've still wasted all that bandwidth. Best to offer a gallery of thumbnails with links underneath each of which is labeled as to screen size. Clicking on a given link will take the user to a page with an image sized for his/her desktop. The image on this page can be cropped by a division of limited dimensions with overflow hidden or (Ugh!) resized by the browser and still be able to be right clicked to set as background. This can be combined with screen.height/screen.width detection to make only one link per thumbnail required for javascript enabled browsers.

[mwinter]

[...] I don't know any other way of fulfilling:

but when the surfer right clicks one and "saves as background"(wallpaper) it sets at the right size of that persons desktop.

Sometimes it's necessary to just accept that there are no decent solutions. Unless the images are very simple (and then why use them?), the prospective user would surely like to know exactly what's going to greet them every time they log on, and to do that the user should be able to see the full image. Therefore, the OP should go with traditional approaches: present thumbnails that are linked to larger versions.

Mike