Tools 323Animated GIFsToolsWeb Design in a Nutshell, eMatter Editionsizes, it is recommended to avoid this setting. This and other disposal
methods are more thoroughly discussed later in this chapter.Browsers that do not support GIF animation will display a static image. The
problem is that some browsers display the first frame and others display the last
frame. If possible, it is advisable to make both your first and last frames mean-
ingful (particularly if it contains important information like the name of your
company).
Tools
You don’t need to search very far to find a GIF animation tool—there seem to be
scores of them available. Regardless of the tool you choose, the interface is basi-
cally the same. Tools tend to differ somewhat in the degree to which they are able
to optimize (shrink the file size of) of the resulting graphic. The following sections
provide an overview of the most popular and/or recommended tools.
GIF Animation Utilities
These are useful tools dedicated to the creation of animated GIF files.
GifBuilder 0.5 (Mac only)
GifBuilder, developed by Yves Piguet, is the old standby for creating
animated GIFs on the Macintosh. It’s freeware that’s easy and intuitive to use.
Its method of optimization, although adequate, is not as efficient as some
other programs. It is available for download athttp://www.pascal.com/mirrors/
gifbuilder/.
GIF Movie Gear (Windows only)
GIF Movie Gear lets you view thumbnails of all frames at a glance and
directly manipulate them. Includes drag-and-drop functionality, real-time
previewing of palette and compression options, and support for AVI, BMP,
Photoshop files, JPEG, as well as GIF. GIF Movie Gear offers pixel-level opti-
mization. You can download a trial version fromhttp://www.gamani.com.
Registration is $30.
Ulead GIF Animator 2.0 (Windows only)
Ulead’s GIF Animator features wizards for quickly and easily constructing
animations, 200 levels of undo, pixel-level optimization, built-in transition and
animation effects, a plug-in architecture for adding new animation modules,
and support for AVI and QuickTime videos and layered Photoshop files.
Download a preview copy fromhttp://www.ulead.com. Registration is $39.95.
GIFmation 2.1 (Mac and Windows)
This is commercial software from BoxTop Software that comes highly recom-
mended by web developers. It features a more visual interface than
GIFBuilder, sophisticated palette-handling options, and a bandwidth simu-
lator. It also uses the efficient “frame differencing” method (discussed later in
this chapter) for optimizing animations significantly better than its competi-
tion. GIFmation costs $49.00 (as of this writing) and is available athttp://www.
boxtopsoft.com/.