X-Face
AnX-Faceis a smallbitmap(48 × 48 pixels, black and white) image which is added to aUsenetposting ore-mailmessage, typically showing a picture of the author's face. The image data is included in the posting as encoded text, and attached with an 'X-Face'header.It was devised by James Ashton.[1]
It is one of the outgrowths of theVismonprogram developed atBell Labsin the 1980s. While many programs support X-Face, most of them arefree softwareand based onUnixor its variations, such asKMailorSylpheed.The most common email programs though, as used in business and most domestic environments, do not handle X-Face natively, and the information is silently ignored. Even where Unix is widely used (university and research environments), it has never been adopted to maximum potential (for example, by searching for senders by X-Face).
A further development is the Face header[2]developed in 2005, which also allows for color images inPNGformat, and can be used by theThunderbirdaddon Display Contact Photo,[3]as well as some other mail readers.
Another approach to include the sender's picture in an e-mail was used by Apple:Maildisplayed the picture if the mail included the X-Image-URL header.[4]In 1992, this feature was originally implemented in NeXTmail, Mail.app's ancestor. X-Image-URL accepts http or (anonymous) ftp to download the picture; typical size 64x64 pixels. As of Mail v4.5, the feature is no longer supported.
See also[edit]
- iChathas a similar though not compatible feature calledpicture icons
- XBMis a general monochrome image format supported byxbm2xface.pl
- FFmpegandNetpbmtools can create X-Face images
- Vismon
- Brand Indicators for Message Identification,a similar feature for brands, based on cryptographic authentication
References[edit]
- ^Ashton, James."James Ashton".Archived fromthe originalon October 24, 2009.RetrievedApril 26,2017.
- ^Ingebrigtsen, Lars Magne."The Face Header".RetrievedApril 26,2017.
- ^Mueller, Samuel."Display Contact Photo".RetrievedApril 26,2017.
- ^"Putting your picture into your mail messages".RetrievedApril 26,2017.
External links[edit]
- "compface".Freecode.- utilities and a library for converting to and from the X-Face format
- Steve Kinzler(2005)."Faces Archive".Retrieved2014-01-06.
applications that can usepicons and/or X-Face mail header entries