This is brilliant! I also am hoping for an implementation here. VERY useful feature. How will it bode with the zoom feature, though
I'm already in the process of making it play along with the zoom feature.
What shall we call it? It needs an official name. You can then slap a lil' logo on the URL loader page you just linked. Something like FreezeFrame or FrameViewer, or GIFstasis. . .
*shrugs*
I call it FrameViewer. You guys can feel free to come up with a name or a logo, and I'll happily use it.
1) Make the UI a little smaller - the bar that pops up with you click the "view frames" link.
I will reduce it from 20 px to 15 px in height, and let all the parameters be configurable if anyone wants to.
2) Add a typical prog bar behind the "processing" and "loading" text so progress can be measured.
I'm using pure JavaScript with asynchronous requests to other server. There's no way to keep track of progress during processing, and even during the actual loading of the image. All I can do is add a little animation, which is meaningless.
I was planning on a Flash version which would allow a lot of extra fancy stuff, but I'm not sure if it would be as well received as a pure JavaScript version. It's up to you guys.
3) Only freeze the animation when the cursor is rolled over the GIF. Let it play even in frame viewing mode.
I dunno about everyone else, but I found myself alternating between inspecting frames and wanting to see it animate - had to hit the X button and then the "view frames" link to go back and forth.
The idea here was to let you pause two animations of the same walking cycle, for example, and compare their frames one by one. If I only paused with the mouse over the image you wouldn't be able to do that. I could add a unpause button to the FrameViewer interface that would play it without closing the tool bar, though.
But please, note that I can't make it play exactly from that paused frame, unless I did the entire timing thing on JavaScript as well. It is possible, but would be a pain in the ass and would slow down animations if the delays are too short. JavaScript timers are too unreliable.
4) I'd like to submit a re-skin of your frame viewing mode UI.
Please do! The idea is to have it very customizable. I might add a little config dialog (saved with cookies) to let users fiddle around with the settings later on.
I don't want to bloat your project. These are just some thoughts I had, trying your tool out. Great job!
Thanks man. If you come up with any more ideas, let me know.