There are two tools included with the IEAK to help the administrator create customized animated bitmaps for their browser. Be sure to use the correct size and format for the bitmaps. For more information, review "Prepare for the wizard."
The first tool takes a series of sequentially numbered bitmaps and stacks them into one bitmap with the correct form for animation. The second tool allows you to preview the animation of the bitmap. The tools are independent of one another and the previewer can be used to display any correctly formatted bitmap.
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 \reskit\tools\animate directory.
This tool is run at a command prompt in MS-DOS. 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. When specifying the name of the output file to be created, include the .bmp extension.
To run, type in the following:
MAKEBMP BASENAME NUMFILES OUTPUTNAME
Keywords:
MAKEBMP - executable file
BASENAME - root filename (without numbers and .bmp extension)
NUMFILES - number of bitmaps to sequentially add
OUTPUTNAME - output file name (include .bmp file extension)
Example: (to combine files bitmap0.bmp through bitmap19.bmp)
MAKEBMP BITMAP 20 FINAL.BMP
There are two ways to start the previewer: command line prompt in MS-DOS, or run through Explorer. Once animbmp.exe is started, there are two ways to preview an animated bitmap: drap and drop the file into the box, or choose Open from the File menu. The bitmap will loop continuously, but will show the lead-in frames only once.
Click Exit from the File menu to quit the previewer.