Big solution built from ground up with v7. I discovered how to use PNG images and photoshop.. now I'm going hog wild with the buttons and such.

Are these PNG images gonna turn around to bite me in the #@!# when I go to host this with Server7 over a LAN?

That really depends on how many you use. I love PNGs because of their abilities to do proper transparencies. But they hardly ever gifs in images size, and I can't remember ever getting them to reduce below jpg. This is because they are non-lossy, so they retain all the info that jpg removes.

I think your biggest problem will be lan speed rather than FMs ability to serve them. I don't know much about FM handles the layout images, but I would think that they are probably going to be loaded once each time the file is opened and loaded onto the computer being worked on rather than constantly being passed from the server. If you are not going to have massive number of users ( < hundred etc) and you have a decent speed LAN (100Mbs) then PNGs should be fine.

Test it. Create a 3Mb PNG, use it as the background or a button on the layout and then try loading it and see how fast it loads. To stress test it you will need to open it one several machines at once. The next thing to try is add a second layout that doesn't use the image. Load the file as normal (to the layout with the picture) switch to the layout without the image and then switch back. Switching back to the layout should be faster than loading it the first time was. If you can't tell make the image larger (file size). You can also try by loading several layouts with large images on each layout and see what happens when you switch between them.

I just tried something and was amazed at how it did NOT slow things down.

Previously, in a v6 served via FM network across the Internet, large JPG images were very slow relative to native FM objects.

However, I just used the same server, now running v7, across the internet and virtually no slow down relative to any other native FM objects on the layout. In fact, I just went on vacation and just for kicks accessed the database located on a FM server in Kansas City from the beach in Clearwater Florida and it zoomed along almost like I was there on the LAN. I was very pleased.