June 11, 2026
JPEG found shaking
HTML is a native image format, hear me out
A coder says websites are images now, and the comments instantly went feral
TLDR: A new project called HMML argues that a picture should be a full editable webpage-in-a-file, not just a flat image. Commenters are split between “this is secretly genius” and “this is nonsense,” with the biggest fight being whether it solves a real problem or just renames a document.
A developer just tossed a lit match into web nerd discourse with HMML, a format that basically says: stop saving a picture as frozen pixels and start saving the whole mini-website instead. In plain English, the pitch is wild but simple: bundle text, layout, animation, code, and image files into one package, then treat that package like an image. The creator’s big claim is that the next thing AI makes won’t just be a flat picture — it’ll be a full scene you can open, tweak, and remix.
And oh, the comment section had thoughts. Some people were genuinely dazzled, calling it “actually kinda brilliant in a weird way” and pointing out that we already accept SVGs — those scalable graphics made from code — so maybe this isn’t as absurd as it sounds. That sparked the biggest pro-HMML argument: if an image can be code in one case, why not in another?
But skeptics were absolutely not ready to hand over the crown. One commenter delivered the instant meme of the thread, comparing the idea to painting by squashing flies against a wall: technically possible, spiritually cursed. Another asked the painfully practical question haunting every ambitious tech demo: cool, but what is this actually for? And then came the PDF comparison, which feels like the most devastatingly calm read of all — is this the future of images, or just a chaotic new document format wearing sunglasses? The vibes are split between visionary, ridiculous, and we regret to inform you this may actually make sense.
Key Points
- •The article proposes HMML as a binary `.hmml` format that packages HTML, CSS, SVG, JavaScript, and raw media resources into a single file.
- •A demo example is described as a real food-delivery page contained in one `.hmml` file, claimed to be about 30% smaller than an equivalent base64 version.
- •The article argues that AI-generated media should be produced as editable documents rather than flattened raster images.
- •HMML is presented as enabling applications to fetch, decode, and mount an entire scene into a DOM element instead of hand-assembling layouts and assets.
- •The proposed format uses a chunk-based structure with a PNG-style signature and named sections for markup, resources, metadata, and end-of-file markers.