Category: Graphics & Pictures
Description: PngOptimizer is a simple utility. Some of what it does can be accomplished with other programs, but with its small size and ease of use it might fill a need.
When you open it, it presents a drag and drop target. You can drag PNG, GIF, BMP, or TGA images files onto it, and the program will produce an optimized PNG image in the same directory without overwriting the original. It is designed to be used with My Computer (Windows Explorer), and stays on top to make drag & drop easier.
You can also do PrtScn or Alt-PrtScn, then right-click and paste into the drop target. It will create a nicely optimized PNG image. The default location for those images is \Documents\Pictures on the USB drive. I expect most people would find that the most useful. If you happen to "copy" some other image onto the clipboard, it can be pasted there also, even if it started out as one of the non-supported formats, and PngOptimizer will turn it into a PNG in the screenshot directory.
Download: PngOptimizer Portable 2.0 Development Test 1 297 KB
MD5 hash: a62fa59f623b53e726c7a04638fbd683
Product Home Page (includes tutorial)
Please test. It is pretty simple.
2008-04-13 dev test 5: tweaks recommended by PP
2011-05-15 dev test 1 for 2.0 updated for v2 of PngOptimizer
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Crashes when you try to browse to a path to save screenshots to. Other than that it works.
The developer formerly known as ZGitRDun8705
Wow. That was fast. Thanks.
I'm not able to reproduce it. Got any clues, or error message? I've gone through that process with many different options without having anything close to a crash.
MC
I just did Right Click > Screenshot Options > Browse Button, then i got the "this program has performed an illegal operation and needs to close"
The developer formerly known as ZGitRDun8705
If you edit PngOptimizerPortable\Data\settings\PngOptimizer.ini to put a valid path (absolute) does it work okay? How about if you put an invalid path?
When I do that with a bad path, it just shows a path selector focussed on "My Computer"; if I do it with a good path, it shows the same thing focussed on that path. No sign of a crash.
MC
If I make it a valid path, it works fine. Also, no more crash this time with an invalid path. Maybe it was a fluke. Anyway, I'd recommend using the ReplaceInFile stuff from the Notepad++Portable launcher, to update drive letters or create an absolute path, and use that in the path option.
The developer formerly known as ZGitRDun8705
Okay, I've fixed it so it should default to a path that is there, at least. Let me know if you have the same issue (from a fresh install).
Thanks Zach!
MC
No more issues now. May I suggest creating an Images folder under Data to store the images in?
The developer formerly known as ZGitRDun8705
Test 3 is available.
Thanks for testing.
MC
This app does a decent job of optimizing PNG for the time it takes, but for "maximum squeeze", use OptiPNG and the "-o7" option.
Cancer Survivors -- Remember the fight, celebrate the victory!
Help control the rugrat population -- have yourself spayed or neutered!
Are you saying that OptiPNG would be a better utility to Portablize?
MC
OptiPNG is a command line app with no GUI. Most people should use PngOptomizer, but if you're a developer "optimizing" an app you're making portable (UPXing, squishing PNGs, re-zipping JAR files, etc) you should use OptiPNG. OptiPNG strips out more "fluff" on PNG files, but takes a LOT longer with the "-o7" option.
Cancer Survivors -- Remember the fight, celebrate the victory!
Help control the rugrat population -- have yourself spayed or neutered!
PNGOut seems to be better than OptiPNG (I have not done any exhaustive testing), but how did the guy make it so that regular PNG programs don't have problems if he's not using zlib (his own algorithm apparently)? Too bad it's closed-source.
http://advsys.net/ken/utils.htm
Vintage!
I've done some semi-scientific testing, and OptiPNG won. Someone needs to test all three apps across a larger set of test images.
Reference A
Reference B
PNGOut has a proprietary license and isn't Open Source so I'm not using or supporting it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portable_Network_Graphics#File_size_and_opt...
Cancer Survivors -- Remember the fight, celebrate the victory!
Help control the rugrat population -- have yourself spayed or neutered!
You didn't include PNGOut in your test. I personally would use PNGOut as long as it outperforms OptiPNG and doesn't cause problems for applications. I still support OptiPNG and hope it gets better, but PNGOut doesn't cost money, it outperforms FOSS alternatives, doesn't install goofy intrusive software, and the output files are not problematic (no special software needed to decode). Should any of that change, I would reconsider my position.
Vintage!
PNGOut does win some battles, but it also loses out to the other optimizers. I just did a few tests with all four optimizers and PNGOut won the first one, then lost the last one horribly and the program I thought was a dud (advcomp) actually won that one by a wide margin. It's hit-n-miss with these things.
Cancer Survivors -- Remember the fight, celebrate the victory!
Help control the rugrat population -- have yourself spayed or neutered!
I'll use multiple optimizers and keep track of the winner in each case. For me, PNGOut seems best so far, but it's far too early to really declare an overall winner.
Vintage!
Thanks guys, for the expert commentary on other optimization techniques.
Any chance we could get back to the program at hand? It may not be the best ever, but it is pretty good, and easy to use, and is likely to be "good enough" for all but the most demanding artisans.
If you come to a consensus on which optimizer works best when, maybe we can work on an application to take advantage of your research.
MC
Our sidebar is over. We didn't get too far off topic though.
I did agree with you in a post up above...99% of the people out there should use the app from the original post for their PNG compressing needs. It's only "compression freaks" like Bahamut and myself that are looking for that extra bit of space-savings.
Cancer Survivors -- Remember the fight, celebrate the victory!
Help control the rugrat population -- have yourself spayed or neutered!
I've tried it with a sample paint image I made, and it works good.
Keep up the good work.
It can be compressed with UPX?
High Res Logo:
http://psydk.org/gfx/pngo15-logo.png
Why, yes it can be UPX'd ... saves 88KB, apparently.
I think I had access to the High Res logo when I worked on it. Did I neglect to use it somewhere?
MC
He's just been helping out my posting high-res logos for some apps around here to make it easier for splash screens and such.
Is UPXing it all that remains for release?
Is it likely that it would be released even if the UPX were completed?
Anything else that needs to be done? If not I'll make another dev test release and see what happens.
MC
I'll check on the small stuff right now.
Here is the little wee tedious stuff.
That's all I got, it looks good. I really do hope this gets released soon, you deserve it.
Dev Test 5 is ready for download ... as soon as sf.net mirrors update.
MC
what happened to DT 4?
The developer formerly known as ZGitRDun8705
Sorry, SF.net messed up DT4, so I skipped it in order to have a clean file.
MC
Link doesnt seem to work on my end. I would like to test this out so if u still have the file could you reupload and also this app seems to have been updated to 1.8 so this might fix some bugs ppl were having here. Thanks
An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.
Mahatma Gandhi,
Indian political and spiritual leader (1869 - 1948)
Please try again. I just did and it downloaded fine. Sometimes SourceForge mirrors are flakey, so you might need to select a different one.
If that still doesn't work, give more details. When I click on it, it works, so unless I get more clues from you I probably won't know where to start to fix it for you.
I'll try to have an update shortly.
MC
Must have been sourceforge at the time cause now it works. Will test this out and Im looking forward to this being updated. Many Thanks rab040ma.
An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.
Mahatma Gandhi,
Indian political and spiritual leader (1869 - 1948)
Sadly, this App appears to have been abandoned. - No update to version 1.8
As Version 2.0 was recently released, any objections to me submitting an update?
MJA