Animated GIF on a form

[AccessHelp]

Good morning,

I inserted an animated GIF file on a form. When I view it on the form view,
it does not do animation. It just shows as a regular picture.

Is there something that I need to do to make it work (animation)?

Thanks.

 

[Allen Browne]

See how you go with this one:
http://www.lebans.com/animatedgifplayer.htm

 

[AccessHelp]

Hi Allen,

Thanks for your help. I visited the link from your message. However, I am
confused on how I can use it on what I need. Can you tell me more in detail
on how I can use it?

Thanks.

 

[Stephen Lebans]

My standard response for the display of Animated Gif files on Access Forms:


The easiest method is to download a 3'rd party ActiveX control. For
performance reasons, it's written in ATL and multithreaded, I like and
have used this one.
http://skyscraper.fortunecity.com/capacity/402/activex.html


For a listing of other controls have a look at:
http://www.generation.net/~hleboeuf/gif.htm


You can also use the MS Web Browser control. Check the currently
installed ActiveX controls on your system.


Finally, for those situations where you do not want to use an ActiveX
control or just want to play a single Animated Gif as part of a splash
screen there is code on my site to do this in native Access VBA. No 3'rd
party DLL's required. The code is a bit dated now and does not include
support for Local Color tables that my latest version in VB6 does.

http://www.lebans.com/animatedgifplayer.htm



--

HTH
Stephen Lebans
http://www.lebans.com
Access Code, Tips and Tricks
Please respond only to the newsgroups so everyone can benefit.

 

[AccessHelp]

Hi Stephen,

Thank you very much for your response.

I am completely new to this subject matter. Can you help me a little bit
more?

I have a Gif file for the word "Home". The Gif file will animate from home
shape to the word "Home". I would like to use it on a form in my database in
place of a command button for the purpose of returning to the Main Menu of
the database.

Can you tell me specifically on how I can use your files in the
"AnimatedGifCtlSource.zip" file?

Thanks.

 

[Stephen Lebans]

As I stated in my post, the easiest method is to use the third party ActiveX
control I pointed you to or the MS Web Browser control. The code solution on
my site is not for beginners.

--

HTH
Stephen Lebans
http://www.lebans.com
Access Code, Tips and Tricks
Please respond only to the newsgroups so everyone can benefit.

 

[David W. Fenton]

As I stated in my post, the easiest method is to use the third
party ActiveX control I pointed you to or the MS Web Browser
control. The code solution on my site is not for beginners.

Well, neither is the web browser control!

The key to making it work is:

1. sizing it after inserting.

2. save the form.

3. close it.

4. open in design view and cut the control to the clipboard and
paste it back into place.

Bloody stupid, seems to me.

And I always seem to get the order of operations wrong and end up
having to do it two or three times.

 

[AccessHelp]

Good morning David,

Thank you very much for your help. As you know, I am completely new to the
things about controls. If you don't mind, can you tell me a little bit more
on Steps 1 & 4?

1. Do you mean I insert the Gif file on a form and resize it to the size
that I want?

4. Do you mean I cut the 3rd party activeX control from Stephen Lebans's
web site? Then who do I paste it into?

Thank you again very much for your help.

 

[Douglas J. Steele]

David's talking specifically about using the web browser control.

Step 1 means that once you've added the control to the form, you need to
resize the control from the default size that appears.

Step 4 means that once you've reopened the form, you need to select the
control, cut it (using Ctrl-X, or Edit | Cut from the menu bar), then paste
it back onto the form (using Ctrl-V, or Edit | Paste from the menu bar).

I know that's certainly necessary in Access 97, but I didn't realize it was
necessary in newer versions.

 

[David W. Fenton]

I know that's certainly necessary in Access 97, but I didn't
realize it was necessary in newer versions.

I recently experimented with comparing A2K and A2K2 to A97 in regard
to the web browser control and had to do all those steps. It may
have something to do with which version of IE is installed. And the
Mozilla/Gecko web browser control had exactly the same problems!

 

[Douglas J. Steele]

I recently experimented with comparing A2K and A2K2 to A97 in regard
to the web browser control and had to do all those steps. It may
have something to do with which version of IE is installed. And the
Mozilla/Gecko web browser control had exactly the same problems!

Good to know, since I'm about to start writing a series of articles on
interfacing with the web. That'll save me some experimenting!

Thanks.

 

[David W. Fenton]

Good to know, since I'm about to start writing a series of
articles on interfacing with the web. That'll save me some
experimenting!

I recently implemented the web browser control in an A97 app, and it
works great now. But I had a helluva time with it. Here's the thread
where I discussed all the problems (all on one line):

"Problem with keyboard input being locked in a form"

http://groups.google.com/group/microsoft.public.access/browse_thread/
thread/cb33fbaa23b342bb/

I eventually diagnosed that the stealing focus problem was caused by
embedding the control in a subform, because putting it directly on
the tab controlled worked just fine. Obviously, something is broken
in the tab controls ability to interact with an Access subform. It
may be that it can be worked around by doing something with the
controls events, but I didn't delve any deeper. If I needed to embed
it in a subform, I'd definitely look at the events associated with
departure from the control to see if I could set the focus in code
to a native Access control.