Section 2 - Overview of ArcaMax Internet Animation Library.
Section 3 - Naming Conventions.
Section 4 - GifE, the Gif Explorer.
Section 5 - Contact Information.
Section 1
Overview of Gif Animation
Animated Gifs are specially formatted gif files that contain multiple images along with header, palette, and timing information that tells your web browser how to view them. The animation is accomplished the same as traditional cell animation. Each frame replaces the previous frame. The frames can be transparent, thus allowing your background to show through.
Viewing animated gifs is automatic with Netscape Navigator 2.0 or later, and with Microsoft Internet Explorer 3.0 or later. At this time, Internet Explorer 3.0 handles animated gifs better than Navigator 2.0. Navigator 3.0 should improve on 2.0Æs shortcomings. Poorly designed animation sometimes interferes with Navigator 2.0, especially if it is a small image that reloads frequently. To avoid this, use the ArcaMax Gif Explorer to reset the animated gif to a slower speed and it will reload less frequently. Or the surfer who is viewing the animation can press the Stop button in their browser to stop the animation from playing. Whatever frame is currently playing on the screen will remain. Internet Explorer 3.0 waits until all images are received to begin animation and then starts all the animation ôin syncö. Other browsers may also support the animated gif89a format. Most browsers that do not support the format still display the first frame or last frame.
Gif Animation is handled automatically by the browser. You do not need to-do anything besides place the gif file in your HTML pages just like any other gif file. Its that simple!
Section 2
Overview of ArcaMax Internet Animation Library
The ArcaMax Internet Animation Library is divided into nine categories. Accents can be used to instantly bring your web pages to life. Animated alphabets can be used to construct lively titles. Bullets are available to build interesting lists. Buttons can be used to construct eye-catching graphical menus. Counters can be used to simulate a clock, led, or countdown (Counters will be included on a future release -- look for them on our web site). Dividers separate the sections of your web pages with animated lines and can also be used as borders that allow you to highlight your important graphics. Items are available to add 3-D rendered flavor to your web site. Navigators guide your visitors through your web site.
The collection comes organized around these categories with each type of animation grouped together under its category. Most of the animation comes in a variety of colors. For example, the Large Blue Marquee Alphabet will install into <InstallDirectory>/alphabet/marquee/large/blue, where <InstallDirectory> is the directory in which you told the setup program to install the Library.
Section 3
Naming Conventions
Unfortunately, a 8.3 naming convention is being used because the CD-ROM ISO format only allows 8.3.
The names for the accents and items refer to the real world name of the item that was animated. The names for alphabets, borders, bullets, buttons, counters, dividers, and navigators are composed of lower case letters and numbers as follows:
Collection - 1 letter (W for General Web, S for Sports, H for Home, E for Education, R for Religion, F for Food, K for Kids, N for Nature (including Animals), C for Recreation). Only the General Web collection is available at this time. Check our web site for availability of the other collections.
Style - 1 letter (A for Alphabet, B for Bullets, U for Buttons, C for Counters, D for Dividers, N for Navigators).
Name - 3 characters with the first letter being the first letter of the primary name of the animation (i.e.lucky horseshoe is H), and the second two characters being an arbitrary number. The first H item is h01 and so on.
Size - 1 letter for the size of the object (S for Small, M for Medium, L for Large, X for Extra Large).
Letter/Direction - 1 letter for the letter of the alphabet or for the rest, the direction of animation (R for to the Right, L for to the Left, U for Up, D for Down, X for oscillating back and forth along the X-Axis, Y for oscillating back and forth along the Y-Axis, Z for oscillating front to back along the Z-Axis, and N for No specific direction.
Color - 1 letter for the primary color (R for Red, G for Green, B for Blue, Y for Yellow, C for Cyan, W for White, K for Black, O for Orange, T for Teal, A for Gray, and N for No dominant color).
For example the Letter A for the Large Blue Marquee Alphabet is named: wam01lab.gif.
Section 4
GifE, the Gif Explorer
You can use ArcaMax GifE to explorer your gifs, both still and animated. You can copy, move, rename, and delete gifs just like the Windows 95 Explorer. In addition to this, you can change the animation frame rate and view the animation frame by frame. Any changes made to the frame rate of the current gif are automatically saved whenever another gif is selected.
The animated gif files are on your CD-ROM as read-only files. If you copy them to your hard drive with GifE they will be changed to writeable. If you copy them with Windows Explorer or any other method, you will have to turn off the Read Only attribute manually, in the fileÆs properties.
