Subject: bug#7716: 23.2.91; Pretest Windows binary doesn't support PNG images

From: Eli Zaretskii <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 11 Jan 2011 21:31:52 +0200

> From: "Drew Adams" <[email-masked]>
> Cc: <[email-masked]>, <[email-masked]>
> Date: Tue, 11 Jan 2011 11:19:38 -0800
> 
> This should not be so complicated.  Windows users - above all other users (since
> more Windows users are not programmers) - should be given a failsafe,
> braindead-simple way to get images to work in Emacs.

The only way to make this dead simple is to statically link Emacs
against all image libraries.  This will make a much larger binaries,
so I'm not sure we want that.

The other alternative is to distribute the DLLs together with Emacs.
Unfortunately, this has legal complications.

It is unfortunate that libpng developers made an incompatible change
between version 1.2 and 1.4.  This is what started this whole issue.
There are no such problems with other image libraries.

I will see what I can do about the other points you raise (except for
.ico support: I have no idea what's involved).