Minimize images

[sYnfo]

Are you planning to add an option to minimize/optimize images in addition to turning them off completely?

Thanks for creating this, by the way, it's super useful!

[snshn]

The idea I currently have in mind regarding file sizes is to have a default max file size, applicable to all types of media (audio, video, images), and then either minimize (images) or exclude (audio/video) files that exceed that limit. The file size limit will be adjustable via flags.

[Alch-Emi]

Another approach to this might be using webp to re-encode and optimize images for size. While PNGs are still the dominant format, webp can often be a lot smaller, especially with compression set high enough.

This PNG image:

compresses from 83K to 36K [41%] with the strongest level of lossless webp compression, and even more so to 24K [29%] at 60% quality lossy.

Considering that images represent a large amount of the filesize of current monoliths, this might be worth putting time into. That said, it doesn't look like there's a very good amount of support for webp in Rust yet, so maybe this is best put on the backburner?

[snshn]

I think it's a good idea to have images converted into one lossless format that takes up the least amount of space, as long as it's supported by all major browsers and if there are no issues like patents surrounding it. And I agree with @Alch-Emi that while scaling most image formats down to save space can be done with what Rust 's ecosystem has to offer as of now, converting them all into webp to save space might have to be delayed until Rust gets a good webp crate.

[grerrg]

Let's not forget the purpose of this tool is to archive and not alter the content.

Imho turning images off is a good idea but doing some image optimization isn't. I'd rather have the original information than saving 2mb per page.

[snshn]

@grerrg what you're saying sounds very reasonable. I rather follow the Unix philosophy and keep this tool as lightweight as possible. The idea of squeezing bytes out of archived pages still seems to be appealing, perhaps it could be done by running some other tool after the page's saved. Outside of the scope of this program, closing.