Applying Simple Web Animation
Why include a section on animation in a chapter on inline images? On the Web, animations are, for the
most part, inline images that move. Outside of the possibilities offered by Dynamic HTML (covered in Part
IV), Web animations typically are either animated GIF files or are created with a program such as Flash that
requires a plugin. This section takes a brief look at the capabilities and uses of GIF animations.
A GIF animation is a series of still GIF images flipped rapidly to create the illusion of motion. Because animation-
creation programs compress all the frames of the animation into one file, a GIF animation is placed
on a Web page in the same manner as a still graphic.
In Dreamweaver, click the Image button in the Insert bar or choose Insert ??? Image and then select the file.
Dreamweaver shows the first frame of your animation in the Document window. To play the animation, preview
your Web page in a browser.
As you can imagine, GIF animations can quickly grow to be very large. The key to controlling file size is to
think small: Keep your images as small as possible with a low bit-depth (number of colors) and use as few
frames as possible.
To create your animation, use any graphics program to produce the separate frames.
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