Animator

Overview

The Animator applet implements an animation effect by displaying a series of GIF or JPEG images. Note: At the time of this release, this applet runs only in Netscape Navigator 3.0.

The images are displayed in a separate window from the main browser window, so that the user can continue to view the animation even if another page is displayed in the browser.

No plug-ins are required in order to play the animation.

Setting up the animation

When you drag this applet to the HoTMetaL PRO document, a dialog box (called a Design-Time Control) appears; this enables you to set up the animation.

The fields in this dialog box should be filled out as follows:

Applet parameters

• Height and Width specify the amount of space in the main browser window that will be reserved for this applet. Since the animation is played in a separate window, you can set both of these values to 0 (zero) if you like. If you choose positive dimensions, the applet will be displayed as a grey rectangle.
• Site Root Dir: choose the folder in which the HTML page containing the applet has been saved. (This is necessary if you wish to preview the applet from your local disk.)
• Use FastLoader: a program that speeds up the loading of the applet. This is generally not needed for the Animator applet.

Animator Parameters

• Image Height and Image Width: these control the positioning of the images in the animator window. The Image Height should be set to the height of the tallest image in the series. The Image Width should be set to the width of the widest image in the series. Images are aligned at their upper-left corners.
• Transition Delay: the interval between images in the animation. Enter a value in milliseconds (thousandths of a second); for example, a value of 250 specifies a quarter of a second.
• Background Color: the background color of the animator window.
• Image URLs: click on Add to choose an image; click on an existing URL and then click on Edit to change the URL; click on an existing URL and then click on Remove to remove the URL.

Click on OK when you have finished the setup. You can display this dialog box again by right-clicking on the applet icon and choosing DTC Properties... from the pop-up menu.

Running the animation

When the browser opens the page, it automatically loads the applet and displays the Animator window. Click on Play> to start the animation. You may have to resize the Animator window to see the full images.

The window has controls that allow the user to play, pause, and stop the animation, or jump to the beginning or end, change the frame rate, step through individual frames, change the scale, or play the animation backwards. It also has an Options menu that lets the user:

• Modify the frame rate: speed-up or slow-down the animation.
• Step through individual frames: let someone walk through the individual frames to examine the animation in more detail.
• Change the scale: the scale can either indicate frames or percentage, so that the user can isolate a particular frame or gauge how much of the animation is completed.
• Play the animation backward or forward.