Fixed Cron.php image is solid white, visible on dark styles

[Erik]

For a while I had been wondering why a single white pixel would randomly show up in the bottom-left of the screen with my style, Flexile. Well, today, I finally found out that it's the cron image, included right before the closing body tag like this:

<img src="cron.php?1294008332" width="1" height="1" alt="" />

This works fine on the default style, but on a style with a dark page background or footer like mine, it appears as a random, jarring white pixel and it is quite annoying if you notice it.

You should use a transparent gif, not a white one, for the cron image so it will work against any background.

 

[Paul B]

See this post for information on how the cron image is created: http://xenforo.com/community/threads/relocate-cron-php-image.9250/#post-126979

It's already a transparent .gif apparently.

 

[Erik]

I saw that, including the comment labeling it a transparent gif, but it is most definitely not transparent.

 

[Erik]

I think I found the issue. white.gif, when opened by Photoshop or any other image application, will be displayed as 1 white pixel. spacer.gif, when opened, will be displayed as 1 transparent pixel.

Now, look at this:



Clearly the files are different as evidenced by their MD5 sums. Now, at first glance their base64 encodings look the same. But actually, they differ by one character:

-white.gif: R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAP///wAAACH5BAAAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAICRAEAOw==
spacer.gif: R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAP///wAAACH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAICRAEAOw==

It's an easy mistake to make. You (the developers) must have copied and pasted the the base64 encoding of a white gif, thinking it was the base64 encoding of a transparent gif.

Edit: the post Brogan linked to confirms that you are currently outputting the data for a 1 pixel white gif, not a 1 pixel transparent gif.

 

[Paul B]

Nice catch.

I must confess, I've been wondering for some time why a transparent cron gif was showing up as white.

 

[Mike]

Good catch, I'm not sure how that happened. I'm not sure why I'd have a 1x1 white gif sitting around, unless I accidentally didn't include transparency.