Legacy ImageMagick Discussions Archive

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

try putting -delay 300 before your file list

what suffix are you using for your animation file?

you can also try GIF87:

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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