5 easy steps to create your animated GIF

Library guide

Adding animated GIF to an HTML page

Frame list guide - navigation, selection & deletion

Troubleshooting guide

5 easy steps to create your animated GIF  



MotionGIF is an all-in-one, user-friendly yet powerful and feature-rich tool to create great looking animated GIF files for your Web pages. There are many ways and scenarios to use MotionGIF effectively. Here is a 5 step example to create an animated GIF file.

[Step 1. Create a new MotionGIF file]
Run MotionGIF and create a new file by clicking the New MotionGIF File button on the toolbar or choosing New... from the File menu. In the New MotionGIF File dialog, choose the frame size of the animation and repeat times when played (you can change later). The new file is created with one frame.

[Step 2. Add objects and images]
The toolbox works in a 'pick-a-tool-and-draw-an-object' fashion. To draw a freehand brush line, for example, you can pick the brush tool, and draw a brush line. Double-click the created object to show Property Sheet and change its properties. Use the image tool to import an image or create a new one. You can also double-click any image to edit in Image Editor.




[Step 3. Add and duplicate frames]
You can add a new frame by clicking the Add New Frame button on the toolbar or choose from the Animation menu. Or, simply duplicate a frame by clicking the Duplicate Frames button. In the newly added frame, change or draw new objects and images. Frame List is an easy way to lookup and manage frames.





 

[Step 4. Add frame transition (optional)]
You can add frame transition as an visual effect by clicking the Insert Frame Transition button on the toolbar or choose from the Animation menu. 



[Step 5. Preview and publish]
To view the animation instantly, click the Preview button on the toolbar or choose from the Go menu. You also can play it in the Web browser by clicking the Preview in Internet Explorer button on the toolbar.
To save the animation to an animated GIF file, choose Save As/GIF File from the File menu. You can add the newly created animated GIF to your HTML page the same way as you add any image file.

 

 
 

These are the only steps you need to create your own animation for your web. There are more features and options not mentioned here. See the help file and explore more...

Library guide



Library files contain objects that you can use in any MotionGIF file and any frame just a matter of drag & drop. 

Open/Create a library File
Choose Open Library... from the Tools menu to open a .MGL (MotionGIF Library) file. When the Library window is shown you can right-click the window and choose Open or Create from the menu

To add objects to a Library
1. Make sure the Library window is visible and select the objects (hold down the Ctrl key for multi-selection) in the frame.
2. Hold down the Alt key and drag the selected objects to the Library window and drop. A new icon is create for the library object. You can rename the icon.

To add an library object to a frame
Drag the library object and drop it in the frame.

Adding animated GIF to an HTML page

Adding an animated GIF file to your HTML page is no different than adding any image. In FrontPage 2000, for example, these are the steps,

Frame List Guide - Navigation, selection & deletion

Frame List is a list of snapshots of all frames in the current MotionGIF file. It provides an easy way to manage frames.

To show/hide Frame List, 

• Click the Frame List button on the Standard toolbar
    - Or -
• Choose Frame List from the View menu
    - Or -
• Press Shift + F1.

You can scroll through the list and click on any frame to work on.

To select a frame

• Click the frame you need in the Frame List
    - Or -
• Press Shift + Left/Right Arrow keys to navigate

To select more than one frame
To select non-sequential frames, hold down the Ctrl key and click a frame to add one by one.
To select a series of frames, hold down the Shift key and click the start and end frame.

To duplicate frames 
Press the Duplicate Frames button on the toolbar to duplicate selected frames. 
 

To delete selected frames 

Press the Delete Frames button on the toolbar to delete the selected frames.
Note: You can add frame transition and delete added frames until you're satisfied with the animation.

Troubleshooting guide

Here are the steps may be helpful to troubleshoot,