Not another stupid switcher....

[72930]

Yes, I am one of those people who used to be an idiot, and is now enlightened. I have a problem with my mac though, I am sure its obvious and I am just missing what apple has tried to make my life easier with, but how do I view GIF animations on OSX?

 

[yellow]

Typically opening them in Safari will display them as animations.

Safari -> File pull-down -> Open File -> nav to file

or

Safari -> Cmd-O -> nav to file

or

Right-click on file and select Open With -> Safari

 

[iBrow]

Typically opening them in Safari will display them as animations.

Safari -> File pull-down -> Open File -> nav to file

or

Safari -> Cmd-O -> nav to file

or

Right-click on file and select Open With -> Safari

Or you could drag and drop the GIF on to the Safari icon in the dock. 🙂

 

[72930]

Thankyou, I would hope they integrate this into 'preview', maybe in leopard. Like I said, I am a switcher and this is one of a very short list of things I prefer in windows.

 

[LastLine]

Why? I mean typically Windows has a nasty habit of opening images in Internet Explorer if you don'thave other software installed. This is just a similar thing.

 

[dejo]

Thankyou, I would hope they integrate this into 'preview', maybe in leopard. Like I said, I am a switcher and this is one of a very short list of things I prefer in windows.

Hmm, how does one view animated GIFs in Windows?

 

[Makosuke]

I recommend dragging them onto the Quicktime Player app--it plays animated GIFs, and also lets you scrub forward and backward.

Preview, of course, shows you the individual frames--perhaps not quite the expected behavior (especially since it USED to play them), but I can sort of see why this was done.

 

[maxrobertson]

You could either open them with QuickTime player, or in Preview, go to View > Customize Toolbar and drag the Play button into the toolbar.

 

[homerjward]

Hmm, how does one view animated GIFs in Windows?

windows picture and fax viewer, though i prefer irfanview, a similar program with more features and support for TONS more formats.
you could just hope for a mac version of irfanview 🙂

 

[Queso]

Thankyou, I would hope they integrate this into 'preview', maybe in leopard. Like I said, I am a switcher and this is one of a very short list of things I prefer in windows.

I give it a fortnight until you get it. Not being patronising, it's just that's normally how long it takes people 🙂

 

[dejo]

You could either open them with QuickTime player, or in Preview, go to View > Customize Toolbar and drag the Play button into the toolbar.

Play button?

 

[iceprincess0966]

Copied and pasted from the Preview Help:

Viewing animated GIFs

An animated GIF is a graphic file that shows a short animation.
1 Open the animated GIF file in Preview.
2 Click the Play button in the toolbar.

If you don't see the Play button in the toolbar, choose View > Customize Toolbar and drag the Play button to the toolbar.

 

[Diatribe]

Play button?

I am pretty sure that the Tiger Preview doesn't have the play button anymore. You can always click play form the menu though.

I can't help it but I have to say it over and over again, the Tiger Preview is the one thing I really HATE about Tiger.

 

[Makosuke]

Preview through I think 10.3 supported playing animated GIFs. This was completely removed in the Tiger version--there is no play button availabe in the toolbar, and no "Play" command anywhere in the menus, either.

There was a brief discussion here about the fact that Apple didn't quite update the help file completely, so it contains a misleading phrase, but this is the important part:

"An animated GIF is a graphic file that shows a short animation. Preview lets you look at each frame in the animation as an individual still image."

Note the lack of anything about watching it moving.

I'm really not sure why Apple removed this from Preview, but regardless QT Player handles animated GIFs just fine, and with way more flexibility (again, scrubbing, etc) than Preview ever did.

 

[Eniregnat]

I still think QT is the way to go. I would guess that Apple removed compiled gif animation (v.s. page at a time) because it muddied the water as to it's media backbone, QuickTime, and a subordinate app.

If you want, a freeware program that is good at both playing and constructing GIFs is Gifbuilder. It lets one change timeing on individual frames, expand gifs etc...

 

[Makosuke]

I would guess that Apple removed compiled gif animation (v.s. page at a time) because it muddied the water as to it's media backbone, QuickTime, and a subordinate app.

This is probably why it was done, and makes sense from a purely theoretical standpoint, but there is one issue that Apple didn't really take into account, and that's that animated GIFs and regular ones look identical to the OS until you open them, so when you double click, one or the other isn't going to open in the app best suited for its display.

I wouldn't be surprised if they figured "How many people really save and play animated GIFs in Preview, anyway?", and they're probably right, but it's still a little hokey.