Animated Bitmap Tools

Before preparing graphics for the logo, you should consult your license agreement to verify that this customization is available.

Two separate tools are included with the IEAK to help you create customized animated bitmaps for your browser:

• The Animated Bitmap Creator takes a series of sequentially numbered bitmaps and stacks them into one bitmap with the correct form for animation.
• The Animated Bitmap Previewer allows you to preview the animation of the bitmap. This tool can also be used to display any correctly formatted bitmap.

Be sure to use the correct size and format for the bitmaps. For more information, review Creating Customized Graphics.

Note

• These tools are provided for the benefit of the administrator and are not to be distributed as supported Microsoft products. Both tools can be found in the \Toolkit\Tools\Animate folder.

Animated Bitmap Creator (Makebmp.exe)

To run this tool, type the following at an MS-DOS command prompt:

makebmp basename numfiles outputname

Where:
makebmp is the executable file
basename is the root file name (without numbers and .bmp extension)
numfiles is the number of bitmaps to sequentially add
outputname is the output file name (you must include the .bmp file extension)

Example
To combine files Bitmap0.bmp through Bitmap19.bmp, you would type the following:

makebmp bitmap 20 final.bmp

Note

The files you use should be numbered sequentially beginning with 0. For example, Iebmp0.bmp Iebmp1.bmp Iebmp2.bmp ... Iebmp24.bmp. When referring to these files, the basename would be Iebmp.

Animated Bitmap Previewer (Animbmp.exe)

You can start the previewer either from an MS-DOS command prompt or from Windows Explorer. After Animbmp.exe is started, there are two ways to preview an animated bitmap: drag the file into the box, or click the File menu, and then click Open. The lead-in frames are shown only once, then the bitmap loops continuously.