GIFS and Macs .....

So, I got a MacBook Pro exactly one year from today and pretty much stopped using Windows, and am very happy with the Mac OS, Tiger was rock solid and a joy, and Leopard is even better and more refined, though slightly more buggier than Tiger.

So far my Mac has done everything as well as better than any Windows machine ( don't play games much.. except Halo demo for Mac !), but one small thing Macs are worse than PCs are GIFS.

It's surprising since Macs are supposed to have a reputation as being superior video/photo editing machines, but you can't save GIFS and see the animations on a Mac ...... I mean what's that all about ??? It's a simple little thing .. shouldn't Preview be able to view something as simple as a GIF, when even cell phones can ?

Sometimes I can view GIFS on websites, other times they fail to load and play properly in Safari, especially if there are multiple GIFS in a page, I simply can't view the GIFS, they play a bit then disappear.

One forum I frequent for example, www.sherdog.net, I have a hard time viewing GIFs or even saving them and viewing them for later ...

Preview doesn't save GIFs correctly, it saves it in a weird way, like a collection of frames, instead of being able to view the GIF.

That is obviously a backward implementation and I'm scratching my head because I don't see people complaining about this.... am I missing something so elemental here or is it something noone wants to bring up ?

dude i think its your computer, i have absolutely no problem. what your computer again?

MacBook Pro, C2D, 2.33 Ghz, 2 GB RAM, 256 MB Ati Radeon ....

Most GIFs play in Safari, but not ALL, but NO GIFs work when downloaded locally --

I've downloaded several GIFs but they don't animate in Preview -- in web browsers most do, but some don't ..

Can you check out this link with Safari .. it's an example of a lot of GIFs on one page .. for some reason the page keeps loading and never finishes and the GIfs are jerky and never play completely .. I'm on Leopard 10.5.1, Safari 3.0.2, but had the same issues with Tiger ..

http://www.sherdog.net/forums/showthread.php?t=703516&highlight=GIFs

Preview never shows the animation in animated .gifs. To see the animation, you need an app like Xee.

MacHeadCase said:

Preview never shows the animation in animated .gifs. To see the animation, you need an app like Xee.

Click to expand...

Thanks for clarifying that, that's what it seemed ... I do happen to have xee, but why in the world would I need a 3rd party app to play GIFs on my Mac when on PCs they just play... surely it isn't difficult to implement ??

I guess I could set Xee as default GIF player, but should't Preview be able to play GIFs ... it's kind of strange I need another app just to play a GIF ...

If it is built-in Windoze, good for the Windoze users.

It isn't built-in Mac OS X. Will it ever be? Maybe who knows. For now...

MacArab said:

Thanks for clarifying that, that's what it seemed ... I do happen to have xee, but why in the world would I need a 3rd party app to play GIFs on my Mac when on PCs they just play... surely it isn't difficult to implement ??

I guess I could set Xee as default GIF player, but should't Preview be able to play GIFs ... it's kind of strange I need another app just to play a GIF ...

Click to expand...

Fill out feedback on Apple's site. Maybe they'll listen. But there will always be differences between Mac OS X and Windows. I could ask about hundreds of things OS X will do that Windows won't. When you switch, you sometimes need to learn new ways of doing things.

In the meantime, you were given some alternatives. Hopefully one works for you.

If you just open up the gif with quicktime player it'll play it for you.

MacHeadCase said:

Preview never shows the animation in animated .gifs. To see the animation, you need an app like Xee.

Click to expand...

You don't even need that. You can just drag the .gif to any browser icon in your Dock and it will play in a browser window.

Preview doesn't save GIFs correctly, it saves it in a weird way, like a collection of frames, instead of being able to view the GIF.

Click to expand...

That is what an animated .gif is after all, a collection of frames.

I TOTALLY AGREE!
After all the great things Macs can do, it just boggles the mind that it won't play gifs in preview!
I'm sorry, but I really would like to know why designers don't just give an update that corrects this horrible flaw.
I swear, somethings Mac do, is just really appalling for such a stellar product. For example, no micraphone Line-In! What's THAT all about??

If you want to record audio from an outside source directly into your computer, you can't! Smh
Sometimes I just don't get Apple. And these gif inabilities just confuses me.

You have to purchase a 3rd party usb soundcard with a mic line in.

MacArab said:

It's surprising since Macs are supposed to have a reputation as being superior video/photo editing machines, but you can't save GIFS and see the animations on a Mac ...... I mean what's that all about ???

Click to expand...

While I'm not disagreeing that there should be native animated GIF (non-animated GIFs work just fine) support in OS X (ie, quicklook, preview et al) ... what does an animated GIF have to do with video/photo editing, particularly on a pro level?

Let's get real for a second ... animated GIFs are cheezy, primitive, usually awful little animations, the digital equivalent of a nickelodeon. You would never, EVER see one used in a professional product. Ever.

They're primarily favoured by forum users where the forum supports them as avatars and by grandmothers/grandfathers who think they're cute. Some can be amusing, but 99 percent of the time they are just cheezy.

It's a simple little thing .. shouldn't Preview be able to view something as simple as a GIF, when even cell phones can ?

Click to expand...

I export GIF files all the time in Preview, but there's no support for *animated* GIFs. Don't conflate GIF (the graphic format) with animated GIFs (see description above).

That is obviously a backward implementation and I'm scratching my head because I don't see people complaining about this....

Click to expand...

See description above for a possible explanation for that.

am I missing something so elemental here or is it something noone wants to bring up ?

Click to expand...

As stated, animated GIFs play fine (but don't cycle endlessly) in Safari and in QuickTime player.