Developer Forum

Folks:

DW8 on MacOS 10.4.8 (fully updated) on Intel iMac.

What would keep an image from displaying in DW Design View? What are the
causes of the grey box with the superimposed "X"? Is there any diagnostic
output that might help? Is the grey box and "X" substituted by DW8 for an
invalid or un-drawable graphic, or is this done by the OS?

The problem:

I've got a 1912 x 1481 graphic, a geographic map, in AI that I'm trying to use
as an ordinary web image, but DW won't display it in Design View. Instead all I
see is a big grey box and "X". For test purposes, I'm starting from a new
"Basic" HTML web page and all I'm doing is inserting this one image. I need to
get this working so I can draw hotspots on this graphic to make it "clickable" .

Here's what I've tried:

o Triple-checking that the inserted image reference is correct. Yes, the image
file is correctly linked. With the image selected, the inspector shows a tiny
but recognizable miniature of the expected image. Further, when the page and
the image are uploaded to the web server and I look at it via a browser, the
expected image is _always correctly displayed. So, in short, I am CERTAIN the
image is available and correctly referenced. DW8 will not or cannot display it.

o Exporting the graphic "for the web" from AI as both a GIF and a
medium-quality JPG. Neither of these are displayed in Design View; both are
served up correctly after being uploaded

o I found a larger JPG on a different site I'm managing. This always displays
as expected in both DW Design View and when served up. I substituted the
failing map JPG image. The result: A grey box.

o Checking the map images: The JPG and GIF versions seem to be visible in all
environments (image readers, browsers, etc.) I've checked _except_ DW8 Design
View.

o Checked on another system. I made the failing image available to a very
helpful ACE, who performed a similar experiment. It worked fine for him. I used
his exact HTML and directory structure -- and it failed for me. Grey box with
"X".

It seems to me that I've checked most of the obvious possibilities. Now it is
time to check the less obvious ones. Suggestions are very welcome!

I know that an incorrectly referenced image may show up as a grey box with an
"X". For what OTHER reasons would this occur.

Thanks,

Henry

The best way to figure it out is for you to post a link. Two guesses:
your site definitions are incorrect or not yet configured. Norton ad
blocking software is blocking your image because of its name or dimensions.

Post a link to the problem page, please. :-)

What file format and file size are these images?

Are they jpeg in RGB colorspace? (dw and most browsers will not display CMYK
jpeg files)

Also- please do this-
open a new blank dw document
-->don't save it<--
insert these image(s)
copy the source code for these <img> tags, and paste into reply.

--
Alan
Adobe Community Expert, dreamweaver

http://www.yqcomputer.com/

Bonnie:

Thanks for your response to my post.

The problem is local, not on the web; once on the server, everything works
perfectly. You are welcome to take a look at the test page:

http://www.yqcomputer.com/

but it is exactly what it should be. You won't see the gray box with a big
"X" on it because that happens on the development host, in Design view, only.

In most cases, I might just blow this off because the served-up version is
right, but I need to draw some hotspots on this image, so it must display on
the development host. I don't think Norton or any other such software is
relevant to this.

I _think_ the fact that this serves up correctly strongly supports that my
site is configured correctly. Anyway, I didn't do anything strange, just
opened a new DW plain page, inserted the graphic in the normal way, and
uploaded.

Thanks,

Henry

Alan:

Thanks for your response to my post:

What file format and file size are these images?

One JPEG image, produced by AI10 "Save for web". Here's the image data from
Mac Preview:

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
File Name 2x-skorowidz_100_2.jpg
Document Type JPEG Image
File Size 346086 bytes
Color Model RGB
Depth 8
Pixel Height 1481
Pixel Width 1912

JFIF Properties

Density Unit 0
IsProgressive 1
JFIF Version 1.2
X Density 100
Y Density 100
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Preview displays the image correctly, by the way.

Are they jpeg in RGB colorspace? (dw and most browsers will not
display CMYK
jpeg files)

That's deeper than I have knowledge, but --yes-- I see that the original AI
file uses CMYK and not RGB, so I made an identical copy except changed to RGB,
and re-exported. No joy. You can see the result serves up correctly at

http://www.yqcomputer.com/

but on the development host in Design view, still see a grey box and an "X".


Also- please do this-
open a new blank dw document
-->don't save it<--
insert these image(s)
copy the source code for these <img> tags, and paste into reply.

Sure, here it is:

<img src="/dev/images/RGB-2x-skorowidz_100_2.jpg" alt="rgb version"
width="1912" height="1481">

Thanks,

Henry

open a new blank dw document
----------->don't save it<--------------
insert these image(s)
------->ignore/dismiss warning to save the file. Don't Save The File<-----

never mind the above- the image is beyond the capabilities of dw to render
in design view.

> http://www.yqcomputer.com/

that's a one megabyte file. it's some 1900x1600 some pixels in size.
It doesn't show in design view on my system either.

OPTIMIZE it for web use. It was saved at 100% quality, with no compression.

it won't show in design view of dreamweaver because of it's file size and
it's pixel size. Don't know at what pixel size dw might start showing it,
but maybe 1000x1000 it will show.

here's a copy, with quality/compression at 60% giving the image a file size
of 310k.
http://www.yqcomputer.com/

i also made a version of the image that was 50% the pixel dimemsions, it DID
show in dw's design view.


--
Alan
Adobe Community Expert, dreamweaver

http://www.yqcomputer.com/

Alan:

Thanks for you response!

Well, yes.. I kinda got the idea that I might be bumping up against a limit,
especially when I ran some tests and found that the same image shrunk by 5%
worked fine. But I couldn't find any documentation of a limit, nor could I
tie the symptom (grey box, big X) to anything other than an incorrectly
specified file. Those are the kinds of thing one hopes to find in the docs
or on the web these days, but .... maybe I just looked in the wrong places,
which is easy enough to do.

Also I had a bit of recent experience with a larger image, pixel-wise, that
displayed just fine. But then I checked and found that image is a tiny bit
smaller, a matter of 5 - 10K bytes in file weight. So it would appear that
the limit is the total amount of data, not just the product of the pixel
dimensions, the size in "square pixels".

Clearly, I'm skating on the edge with this image, trying desperately to avoid
having to divide it in pieces, and bumping against an immovable Design view
limit. As you can see, the the resolution is just barely sufficient to read
the labels, I'm certain someone will complain, and I'll be pressed harder.
The optimization (thanks!) will buy some margin, but I'll have to see how much.

The underlying issue is being able to draw hotspots in Design view. If the
served-up image just has to be bigger than what DW will display, I wonder if I
can produce two identically sized images, one which goes straight to the
server, and the other which I use only to draw the hotspots, down-rezed so I
can just barely see the boxes and the text legends are hash. It is less
convenient if the legends are not readable, but not critical.

Thanks,

Henry

for being able to draw the hotspots- you're already onto the two possibles
i'll suggest.

one- if a drastically optimized version at the same pixel size will display
in design view- use that to make the imagemap. Afterwards, just change the
image to the higher quality one before uploading.

two- slice the image into 2 or 4 parts; with their meeting pixel dimensions
exactly the same of course. Put them into a table with
cellspacing/cellpadding set to 0. Set the border on the img tags to 0 also.
Go wild with the hotspot tool- they should display in design view alright
because each image is a size dw can cope with.

--
Alan
Adobe Community Expert, dreamweaver

http://www.yqcomputer.com/

Alan:

Thanks for your response!

So, I should be able to make this work!

Thanks!

Henry