Note that if you are using “manual advance” of frames, then keystrokes and mouse clicks are ignored until the current picture has been fully drawn on the screen.
Stopping the show
Press Command-period, Command-W, or the “Esc” key and the current slide show will stop. You will then have to re-scan or reprocess a tag file in order to view further pictures. If you wish to temporarily pause the display, use the “Hide” feature described below instead of stopping the show.
If you wish to stop the slide show and return to the Finder, just press Command-Q (Quit) in the usual way.
Automatic advance
Press Command-A to toggle automatic advancing of pictures on and off. A message will briefly appear in the bottom right-hand corner of the screen to show what the new status is (Automatic or Manual advancing).
If you have an “extended” keyboard (one with function keys), you can press F6 to turn “automatic advance” on (pressing F5 turns “manual advance” on).
The advancing method (automatic or manual), and the delay between frames are remembered by GIF Slideshow for the next time you use the program.
Delay between pictures
To control the amount of time between pictures, use Command-D to set the “Delay” time in seconds. You are allowed to set a delay period in the range 0 to 600 seconds (i.e. zero to 10 minutes).
Note that setting the delay period very low (e.g. 0 seconds) will mean that the amount of time between frames is actually the time taken to decode the next picture (which can range from 1 second to about 5 seconds). Effectively then, a delay of “0” means “show the pictures as fast as possible”. A reasonable setting for the delay amount is 5 seconds which is usually enough time to enjoy each picture.
Manual advance when in automatic mode
Note that when “automatic advance” is activated you can still manually advance to the next picture by pressing “space”, “return” or “enter”, or clicking the mouse. You might use this technique in conjunction with a longer delay period (say, 30 seconds) to advance past boring pictures.
Delaying the automatic advance
Alternatively, if you have the automatic advance set to a short period, say 3 seconds, and see a picture you want to admire, just hold down one (or more) of the following keys: Command, Option, Control or Shift.
While one of the above keys is depressed, the automatic advance is temporarily disabled. When you let go of the key, the program then waits for the delay period to elapse before advancing to the next frame (e.g. if the delay period is 3 seconds, there will be a further 3 second delay from the time you let go of the key).
Stopping automatic advance
To disable automatic advance, just press Command-A again or, if you have an extended keyboard, press F5.
Manual advance
To manually advance to the next picture, press any of the following keys: “space”, “return”, “enter”, or any letter key in the range “A” to “Z”.
Alternatively, click the mouse to advance, provided you can selected “Mouse click advances to next picture” in the “GIF Slideshow preferences” dialog box.
When using manual advance, if you click or press a key before the picture has been fully drawn, the click or key-press is discarded. This is so that you do not accidentally advance too quickly by pressing two keys in a row, or clicking twice by mistake. You must wait for the picture to complete drawing (and any information such as the file name to appear) before attempting to advance to the next picture.
If you press a “letter” key (i.e. “A” to “Z”) this key is noted in memory, and remembered when (and if) you create a “tag” file. You can thus use the alphabetic letters to “tag” various pictures (e.g. “F” for Fish, “L” for Landscapes).
Hide Picture
Press Command-H to toggle hiding the current picture. While the picture is hidden the menu bar and mouse reappear, and you can see the desktop in the normal way. Also, automatic advancing between pictures is disabled whilst the “Hide Picture” option is active. If GIF Slideshow is in the middle of decoding the next picture there may be a short delay (one or two seconds) until the current picture is hidden.
To return to the slide show, press Command-H again.
Loop Continuously
Press Command-L to toggle looping through the pictures. If the “Loop” option is active then once all pictures that you have selected have been displayed the display will start again from the start.
Random sequencing
Press Command-R to toggle random sequencing of pictures on and off. A message will briefly appear in the bottom right-hand corner of the screen to show what the new status is (Random or Sequential advancing).
If you have an “extended” keyboard (one with function keys), you can press F8 to turn “random sequencing” on (pressing F7 cancels “random sequencing”).
The sequencing method (random or sequential) is remembered by GIF Slideshow for the next time you use the program.
Random sequencing is very useful for viewing CDROMs with thousands of pictures. Without random sequencing you would always see the files at the start of the CDROM, and never the ones at the end (unless you watched for hours and hours!).
When random sequencing is active the next file to be shown is chosen randomly from the ones not yet seen. This guarantees that you will always see each file once before any are repeated.
Used in conjunction with the “looping” option you can leave your Mac turned on all day with a suitable CDROM mounted to see a random selection of pictures that is always interesting!
Do not use random sequencing of pictures if you are planning to reposition to a given file number by using the “Go to picture by number” command described under the help window “Finding a picture by name or number”.
Scrolling pictures that are larger than the screen
When a picture that is too large to fit is being drawn on the screen GIF Slideshow automatically draws a 3D-style border around the picture as a visual indication that there is more of the picture available.
If you have an “extended” keyboard (one with function keys), you can press F9 to turn “display at full size” on (pressing F10 sets the option “Shrink pictures which are larger than the screen”).
You can scroll around and see the rest of the picture by:
  • Option-clicking with the mouse (the mouse pointer will turn into a “grabber hand”), and then — whilst holding the mouse down — moving the mouse around to see the rest of the picture. If you have unchecked the preferences option: “Mouse click advances to next picture” then you do not need to hold down the option key to use the mouse to scroll the picture around. If the mouse pointer appears as an outlined “X” then the picture cannot be scrolled (it is completely visible without scrolling).
  • Alternatively, you can use the arrow keys on the keyboard, or the “page up”, “page down”, “home” and “end” keys.
  • If you have a numeric keypad, the keys “1” to “9” scroll the picture as well. For example, “8” moves the view upwards (the picture moves downwards). The keys “1”, “3”, “7” and “9” move the view diagonally. The “5” key centres the picture.
  • When using the keyboard, if you hold down the Command, Shift, Control or Option keys as well, the view is moved in larger increments.
When scrolling becomes available
  • Scrolling of pictures only applies if you have unchecked the preferences option “Shrink pictures which are larger than the screen” (or pressed function key F9).
  • As GIF Slideshow starts decoding the next picture while you are viewing the current one, it will not respond to attempts to scroll the current picture until the next picture is ready (this might take one or two seconds). As a visual cue that it is ready to scroll the current picture, the colour of the 3D border which it has drawn (to indicate that scrolling is possible) changes slightly, from a slightly pink shade (not ready yet) to a grey shade (ready to scroll).
