GIF question

[suma]

When u click on an image how do u know right away if it's a gif or still image?
Some GIFs take a while before they start moving

[tekuno]

Mind giving us some context for this question? Do you mean in a web browser? On a particular web site? Saved on your own computer? And "click" means what, exactly -- open it in a separate window, download, what?

[suma]

Let's say on tumblr
When u scroll looking at pics or click to view larger , many times if it's a gif it doesn't animate immediately as if it takes min or 2 to load

But there seems to be no way to tell if u got a gif or simply a still pic?

[LeatherGryphon]

Originally Posted by suma

Let's say on tumblr
When u scroll looking at pics or click to view larger , many times if it's a gif it doesn't animate immediately as if it takes min or 2 to load

But there seems to be no way to tell if u got a gif or simply a still pic?

Basic procedure for any object in Windows.

1) if you want a Windows object or a web page object to simply "do it's thing" you just move your cursor to the object and "click" on it. where "click" means one down&up click of the left mouse button (unless you've re-programmed your mouse to swap left & right button behavior). Note however, that on the Windows desktop you usually have to "double-click" to get an object to "do it's default action" because a single-click simply selects the object for further action or inquiry.

2) However, if you want to see a list of options about what you can do with any object in Windows or on a web page, move your cursor to the object and "right-click" on it (that's the button opposite the "left" button). This brings up a list of things you can do with that object. (Note: that in Windows usually one of those things in the list of options is the default behavior that you get with the standard "left-click" action and it's usually in bold letters.)

Once you have the list of optional actions that apply to that object you simply look down the list, think a little, experiment a little and eventually you'll find an option that probably gives you the information you want or does the thing you want it to do. This handy little feature has been in Windows for about 20 years.

In this particular case you want to find out if an image is a GIF as opposed to another format of image. Simply right-click on the image then select the "Properties" option from the list (probably at the bottom) and, among other things, it gives you the full name of the image which will be followed by the letters ".gif" if it is a GIF image.

Making a long story short: Right-click, check "Properties", look for ".gif".

And if you're doing this from some sort of smart phone or tablet device you're on your own. I don't own one and my experience has been that the interface is very limited. It's like trying to do surgery while wearing boxing gloves. Thank you Microsoft for dumbing down computers to match the audience.

And if you're using a Browser other than InternetExplorer you may not have the object option "Properties" it may be hidden under something like "Interrogate" or some other way to identify the object's details.

[suma]

Well nowadays smart phones are practically replacing PCs so your tutorial didn't help much. Thanks anyway.

[tekuno]

So, as far as I can see, your question is actually: "Is there any way to tell, in a cross-platform cross-browser way because if you get more specific than that it's useless, whether an image which is loading in a web browser is an animated .gif file which has not started playing yet or merely a very large image file?"

The answer is: no. There is no way to do that. Some specific web browsers will let you do that, and in theory some websites might even do it for you, but there's no way to give a general answer which applies everywhere.

Strictly speaking, every browser I'm aware of for actual computers (as opposed to tablets and smartphones) has a mechanism for doing this, but it generally involves features which are for advanced users or developers, and those are the sorts of things which smartphones often drop on purpose to keep the interface uncluttered. Sorry, but there are things that you just can't do on a smartphone, and will never be able to do well on a smartphone even if the software ever arrives. That's why real computers cost more, even though touchscreens are expensive to manufacture.

[suma]

Well thanks. So now I know.