Animated gif does not work in IE

[asle]

Hello,
I am trying to create an animated gif. The animated GIF works fine in Firefox but does not animate in Internet Explorer 6 or 7. I must say that I first resize a JPG to a GIF like this and the combine it with another GIF. Check if it is bigger than $maxwidth and resize it:
/usr/local/bin/convert -resize $maxwidth $file GIF:$file

I use this command in my perl script to make the animated gif of the resized (jpg to gif):
/usr/local/bin/convert $file_list -colors 256 -delay 300 -loop 0 GIF:$file_out

If I make the animated gif from the same files in Adobe Image Ready it works fine in all browsers. What am I doing wrong?
Here is my imagemagick version running on Debian. I have no way to upgrade Imagemagick on this server so I must use what is there.

-bash-3.00$ convert -v
Version: ImageMagick 5.5.4 02/01/03 Q16 http://www.imagemagick.org

Any help would make me very happy!

/asle

[fmw42]

try putting -delay 300 before your file list

what suffix are you using for your animation file?

you can also try GIF87:

[asle]

Thanks, I will try your suggestion.
I am using ".gif" for the animation file. And like I wrote it works fine in FF and Safari but not in IE. Will let you know if it works!
I am not sure if it will accept GIF87 but is should. I tired "GIF+:" but that was not valid and maybe my ImageMagick is too old.

/asle

[anthony]

If you IM is producing GIF87 by default, then it is extremely old (changed IM v6.0.4).

There were hugh numbers of GIF animations bug way back then! Something I took great pains to get sorted out and fixed while developing the IM Examples pages for GIF animations (3 sections).

IM should produce GIF89 format by default, and only output a GIF 87 is "gif87:" format control is specifically used. See http://www.imagemagick.org/Usage/formats/#gif87
The section is marked "Related GIF Output Formats" just before the section on "JPEG" file format.

GIF87 is known to fail for many web browsers.

[asle]

I tried this but with no luck. If I use output to "GIF89:image.gif" I get this error:
/usr/local/bin/convert: No encode delegate for this image format

If I try to output "GIF:.." the jpg image is not resized to a smaller GIF but cropped. Leave out the "GIF:" before the output image and it resizes but does not animate in IE.

Am I stuck here since my IM is too old? Do I have to do the conversion on a box that has a newer IM installed?

/asle

[anthony]

Just what is your IM version number?

If you can not upgrade (something I STRIONGLY suggest), then there are alternatives. gifsicle and intergif for example can build the GIF animation from individual images.

I can't guarantee its quality, and in a comparison using these programs and IM, both failed to regenerate GIF images which used very specific disposal techniques for the animation. The later versions of IM I know can handle ANY GIF animation as I programmed it to handle all cases and combinations of disposal methods.

[asle]

Thanks.
I wrote in my first post:
-bash-3.00$ convert -v
Version: ImageMagick 5.5.4 02/01/03 Q16 http://www.imagemagick.org

How do I use gifsicle or intergif?
/asle

[anthony]

You would download it and read their help on using it,
Websites...
http://www.lcdf.org/gifsicle/
and
http://www.chaos.org.uk/~pdh/software/intergif.htm

And your IM is extremely old. In fact it would even have problems with multiple operations on images. See fmw42's post above.

[asle]

Thanks. These may help me on my old server (gifsicle). I am not able to upgrade IM but hope to move this to a newer server with newer IM.
Thanks again Anthony and others for helping a newbie. You are so kind

/asle