| FOR WINDOWS/IBMS... | FOR MAC |
|---|---|
| First, you have to download the self-extracting program so you can download zipped files: PKZIP for windows. | Okay, my idea about the self-extracting thing didn't work. Here's Stuffit Expander 4.02, which I doubt is self-extracting. Better, if you have a higher version of MacOS, Stuffit Expander 4.5, which is self-extracting (which means you don't have to unstuff it.). This program allows you to open stuffed files, the way files are when you download them. To open zipped files on MACS (which I only do for ROMS since they still need a .whatever extension even on a Mac emulator) you need to use a Mac Unzipper. You can get ZipIt at the above address for Stuffit Expander 4.02, or you can go here for DropStuff with Expander Enhancded. When you install this with Stuffit Expander 4.5, it installs you some plugins that enable you to unzip files with Stuffit Expander. I like this and find it extremely useful. I like it a lot better than ZipIt, so I recommend this to you. |
| Then, you should download Netscape 4.05 communicator! | Well, if you get Stuffit Expander working (and if you didn't already have an expander program, please email me and tell me how you got Stuffit working), you should go to the Netscape 4.05 download page. I personally more recommend Internet Explorer 4. I think it's better than Netscape. You can get more IE tools if you search for Internet Explorer on download.com. If you did get Netscape, I highly recommend you download Netscape Defrost, a program that's supposed to keep Netscape on macs from freezing up. |
| If you have pkzip then you can start downloading! My favorite things to download are games! Here's a neat little game to get you started: Jezzball! | If you have your very own home page, which you can get at tripod.com, geocities.com, or angelfire.com (and email, too, at hotmail.com), and you want animation, read on: |
NIH Image is a drawing program. You can save your files as tiffs, picts, quicktimes, and some other formats. You can also create a stack, which allows you to animate your drawing with NIH. However, you can't save things as any kind of format readable over the www. (note--tiffs are download files from the www). Email me for more help on how to use this if you have trouble. It comes with a guide, I think, and is also compatible with balloon help. Click here for GifBuilder help, here for help on animating images to a format readable on the www using both programs.
GifBuilder is an animation program that works on a picture-by-picture basis. You have to import the frames from elsewhere, GifBuilder is not a drawing program. There are several options, such as blur, transitions|slide, etc. It's really awesome.
After you draw stuff on NIH, saving each different frame as a seperate file, you go to GifBuilder. Push command-k or file| import graphic (or something like that). It'll bring up a browse window. Find and select the file (frame) you wish to animate. Do this for all frames you want in this particular animation. Highlight (click on) each frame (and it is possible to select multiple frames by holding down shift) in turn to select the interframe delay (options menu). Default is 10 out of 100 seconds. Also under options is loop, disposal method, and frame position. On some older macs, if the image is big, when you animate it may go very slow. I think I've found a way to get by this when uploading to the web. In GifBuilder, close the frames preview window before the last save--save it after you close the window. Then when you upload to the web, since the preview window wasn't open to make it go slowly, it will go as fast as you set it to on the web.