Windows 3.1x Reference Manual
This is a very brief reference manual for the Windows 3.1x version of A Smaller GIF.
It is also available online.
Contents
We begin with an overview of the menus available while using A Smaller GIF.
Contents
- About A Smaller GIF... displays the start-up screen. It may be dismissed
by pressing any key. The start-up screen shows the program's version
number on the left and the registered user's name on the right.
- Open... allows you to open an animated GIF to work with. After opening a file,
three windows will open (a preview window,
an animation controls window, and
a frame controls window).
The windows are described in the Windows section of
this manual.
- Close Window closes the foremost window. Closing any of the windows for a
particular animated GIF will close all of the windows associated with that
animated GIF.
- Save saves the current document after trying to minimize the amount of disk
space the animation uses. A Smaller GIF can reduce the amount of space an
animation uses without changing its appearance in any way, as GIFs are stored using
a lossless compression format. Many of the GIF utilities available
do not maximally compress GIF files when they are saved. Even A Smaller GIF
is not guaranteed to fully compress a GIF file. Currently, the program uses a
number of techniques to reduce the size of the resulting GIF file. Later
versions of this program may incorporate additional compression techniques.
Some techniques may produce files that are not compatible with viewers that
do not fully implement the GIF standard - you have some control over the
techniques employed via the preferences window.
- Save As... is similar to Save, but allows you to save the file using a new
name, so that you may keep your original file intact.
- Test Compression compresses the GIF file without actually saving it. After
compression, it will report the file size that would have been acheived if
the file was actually saved.
- Register is used to register the program. For more registration information,
please see our registration page.
- Preferences opens the preferences window,
which allows you to control
the compression techniques used. You may also edit your own standard GIF
comment by using the preferences. See the section on preferences for more
information.
- Quit exits the program.
The edit menu allows you to cut, copy, and paste text into the various text fields used.
The animation menu is available after you have opened an animation.
- Add Standard Comment prepends the exit comment with your standard
comment. You may modify your standard comment via the
preferences window.
- Remove All Comments removes all GIF comments from the animation.
- Deinterlace All Frames deinterlaces all of the frames of the animation.
On many platforms, Netscape Navigator (versions 2 and 3) flickers considerably
when displaying the first frame of an animated GIF which is interlaced.
Subsequent interlaced frames don't cause flicker, but do slow updating. On
both the Macintosh and Windows platforms, Microsoft Internet Explorer (version 3)
handles interlaced animated GIFs well.
We illustrate the remainder of the program by discussing what happens when
you open the provided "GrafEqAd.gif" file that is supplied as part of the
download package. The file has already been processed by a utility which
claims to shrink your GIF files.
Contents
The preview window, entitled "GRAFEQAD Preview", displays a preview of the animated
GIF. If you enlarge the window, you will see the entire window title. The preview image will be
centered within the larger window, and surrounded by the GIF's background colour.
The keyboard's arrow keys may be used to navigate, as described below:
- Press the right arrow key to advance the preview by one frame. Hold the right
arrow key down to fast-forward through the animation.
- Press the left arrow key to rewind the preview by one frame. Hold the left arrow
key down to rewind through the animation.
- Press the down arrow key to play the animation forward, at normal speed. Press the
key again to fast-forward through the animation.
- Press the up arrow key to play the animation backward, at normal speed. Press the
key again to repidly rewind through the animation.
- Press the space bar to toggle preview playback.
If the preview is playing, the space bar stops the preview.
If the preview isn't playing, the space bar starts playing the preview forward, at normal speed.
- Press the escape key to stop the preview from playing.
If the preview reaches the end of the animation while playing forward, it will
resume from the beginning. If the preview reaches the beginning while playing
backward, it will resume from the end.
The animation controls window, entitled "GRAFEQAD Animation Controls", is used
to control the overall animation. Although you often can't see the entire title, the window's
visual appearance sets it apart from the other windows.
- Size: 140x60 (6.1K) displays the size of the animation. In this case, it is 140
pixels wide, 60 pixels high, and uses approximately 6.1 kilobytes of disk space.
- 31 Frames (0:07.20) displays the length of the animation. In this case, it contains
31 frames. If the animation is played at normal speed, on a machine capable of
playing the animation at normal speed, it will last 7.2 seconds.
- Loop forever controls the looping aspects of the animation. This animation is
set to loop forever. Other possibilities include playing once, or looping a fixed
number of times, from once to 65,535 times.
- 24 colours displays the number of colours used in the animation.
- Background Colour FFFFFF displays, visually and textually, the background colour
of the animation. Web browsers tend to ignore this, and opt to use the web page
background instead of the background specified here. As the background given here
is used in the preview, this control allows you to see the effects of different page
backgrounds. The textual description is given using HTML syntax - the colour is
given as <red><green><blue>, with each component given as a two digit hexadecimal
number.
- Starting Comment displays the GIF comment(s) that precede the frames of the
animation. You may edit the comment. Normally, one chooses to put comments
after the animation frames, by using the next control. Starting comments will
delay the arrival of the first frame.
- Ending Comment displays the GIF comment(s) that follow the frames of the
animation. You may edit the comment.
The frame controls window, entitled "GRAFEQAD Frame Controls", is used
to control the current frame of the animation. Although you often can't see the entire title, the window's
visual appearance sets it apart from the other windows.
- Frame 1 0:00.00 identifies the current frame. In this case, the current frame
is the first frame, which also starts at 0 seconds into the animation. You may
jump to any frame in the animation by entering a frame number.
- The frame slider appears next. It visually displays your position in the animation.
You may position yourself to any frame by dragging the thumb with the mouse.
- The seven playback controls are displayed next. The edgemost controls rapidly
rewind and fast-forward the preview through the animation. The next pair plays the animation, at normal
speed, backwards and forwards. The innermost pair rewind and advance the preview through the animation
one frame at a time. The center control halts automatic playback.
- Duration 0:01.00 controls the duration of the current frame. In this case, the
current frame lasts 1 second.
- User Input specifies if the user, by giving some sort of input, may cause the
animation viewer to advance to the next frame before this frame's duration has expired.
If checked, and the user gives input while this frame is displayed, the viewer
should immediately advance to the next frame. If this frame has a duration of zero
seconds and the control is checked, the viewer should not advance until user input
is given. A Smaller GIF ignores this feature of GIF animations, as do most other
viewers.
- Interlaced controls whether the current frame is interlaced.
- Comment shows the comment(s) that immediately precede the current frame.
Normally, comments are put at the end of the animation by using the Exit
Comment control in the animation controls window.
The preferences window, opened by selecting Preferences (under File), is used to
- control which GIF compression techniques are tried, as well as to
- edit your standard comment.
The popup control in the top left corner of the window selects which
preferences you wish to review. Preferences are stored on disk in the registration
file. Comments on each of the available preferences follow:
- GIF Optimization
- Omit frame terminators specifies whether frame terminators may be omitted.
Most GIF viewers ignore frame terminators and opt to determine the end of a
frame by counting the number of pixels decoded. Viewers are forced to do this
since a moderate number of GIFs do not include frame terminators. With this
option selected, the files are slightly smaller, but do not follow the GIF
specification strictly.
- Exclude (0,0) from frame rectangle specifies whether the top left corner of
encoded frames must be the top left corner of the animation. A Smaller GIF
only encodes differences between frames, so the upper left corner is often not
included by default. Checking this will generate smaller GIFs. Produced GIFs
will not be compatible with version 2 of Internet Explorer for the Macintosh
if this control is checked.
- GIF Comments
- Standard GIF Comment shows your standard GIF comment. You may quickly
add your standard comment to an animation by selecting Add Standard Comment
from the Animation menu.
The default comment is "Shrunk by NAME on DATE, using A Smaller GIF vVERSION."
- "NAME" expands to the registered user's name,
- "DATE" expands to the current date, and
- "VERSION" expands to the current version of the program.