HTML - attachments

[Karen]

Hi All

I manage all my emails via the web and do not have any problems, apart from when I am sent emails with GIF attachments. They appear as pictures and there is no animation. Do I need to view them as HTML? If so, how do I activate this.

Thanks
Karen

[Undecided Adrian]

I thought GIF's were static pictures and not animations anyways.

[Isitme]

Yes GIFs are bitmark images, but they are also capable of animation, which I think is what the OP means.

Animated GIFs should be viewable in just about any web browser and in applications like Quicktime. To send one I think you would need to enable HTML but you should not have to do anything special to view it, apart from clicking it. eg. You should be able to view the attached .gif by clicking it. It will then open a browser page. If you can't view this, then I suspect something may be wrong with your file associations.

[Karen]

Hi TomD

I didn't have any problems viewing that link of your Scottish Flag. After my posting yesterday I had a word with one of the IT advisors at work and he reckoned it's because I was just using webmail and not Outlook.

Karen

[Isitme]

I don't think that is the reason. I have checked by sending to my Hotmail, Google and Sky account and they all display.
Could you right click on a animated gif and select 'Open with....' Check what applications are in the list to view Gifs. If your browser is not shown, click Browse and go to IE.exe or Firefox.exe, which ever browser you use and make it the default. If your browser is in the list, make it default. See if you can now veiw them.

[Karen]

When I right click on the picture I have an option of " open link " this then opens the picture in another window - with full animation. I don't have the option of " open with ". I have right clicked the IE icon and it is the default browser.

[Isitme]

I am not certain but it looks to me as if the picture is not a Gif, but a link to it. If it were a gif you should get the Open with.. option on the menu. Could you try this, open the animated gif, right click it and select 'Save image as' and save it to your Desktop. Now right click the image and see if you get the 'Open with' option and do as I suggest in post #5. When I said make it the default I meant make the browser the default for opening gifs.

[Karen]

Hi

Just tried what you recommended. It looks like you are correct about it not being a GIF as the extension when I saved it to my desktop was .PNG . The default appeared to be the picture and fax viewer. I changed that to IE but it hasn't made a difference. Thanks for all the advice and help.

Karen

[Isitme]

I think that explains it. PNG, which means Portable Network Graphics, does not in itself support animation. The one in most use for animation is APNG (Animated PNG) which is not supported by IE, only Firefox and some of the other more obscure open source browsers.

I suggest you download and install Firefox 3 that should enable you to view APNGs in all their glory and apart from that, it is a better browser than IE.

[Karen]

Isitme - Thanks very much for all of your help. I will get Firefox sorted.

Karen