These frames were imported in the correct order because they were saved in that order and because of how GMG imports GIF files according to how they are named. In other words, the GIF file that was intended to be the first frame was saved as alien1.gif, the GIF file that was intended to be the second frame was saved as alien2.gif, and so on. GMG orders multiple GIF files alpha/numerically. Since all of the GIF files have the same name except for the number at the end of the name, GMG used the numbers to determine their frame order. As a further example, if we had files named a.gif, b.gif, and c.gif, etc., GMG will place the a.gif file first and the c.gif file last.

GMG allows you to see all of your frames at once. Click on the Zoom Out toolbar button if you cannot see all the frames in your animations. Now Click and hold down the mouse on the first frame of the animation and then drag it to the right. As you drag, notice the black I-beam line that shows up in between the frames (within the gray borders that separate the frames). This I-beam lines indicates where the frame will be placed when you let up on the mouse. Drag the first frame all the way to the right and let go of the mouse when the I-beam line shows up on the gray border at the far right side of the last frame. When you do this, the first frame will be repositioned and it will now be the last frame.

If the last frame is not already selected, select it again. Now select Cut from the Edit menu or use the industry standard keyboard shortcut (Ctrl+X). Next, click on the first frame of the animation and then select Paste from the Edit menu or press Ctrl+V. Now the frame will be repositioned at the beginning of the animation. This demonstrates that GMG pastes frames in front of the selected frame. So, you can either reorder frames by dragging and dropping them into position or by cutting and pasting them. Incidentally, a paste goes to the end of the animation when no frames are selected and the File>Insert Frames command conforms to the same paste locations as the Paste command.

Before we move on, we have a few suggestions and notes that you should be aware. First, in this example, the files are numbered alien 1-4. If you have more than 9 frames in your animation, we suggest that you use double digit numbers. For example, frame 1 would be "frame01.gif", frame 5 would be "frame05.gif", frame 10 would be "frame10.gif", and so on. Doing this will ensure that animations with frames over 9 frames will be arranged in the proper order when you import multiple frames at once. Also note that names only matter when you are opening multiple frames at once. There is no automatic ordering when you import one frame at a time.

There are several handy options in the Preview Animation dialog box that you should become familiar with. First notice that you can zoom in and out while you preview an animation. The preview dialog box is resizeable, so you can zoom in on your animation and then scrutinize the smallest detail as the animation plays. Also notice the standard VCR-like controls/buttons for stopping, going to the first frame (rewinding), jumping to the last frame, and stepping back and forth through frames one at a time.

Notice that the background of the preview dialog box defaults to a medium gray color. You can change this color. To do this, click on the View Background As button (the small monitor iconin the bottom center of the dialog box). Doing this will open the standard Windows Color Picker dialog box. Click on the little black rectangle in the bottom left corner of the "Basic colors" section of the Colors dialog box and then hit OK.

Now the animation is previewed over a black background. This features allows you to preview how an animation will look over a given color background which can be very handy if you use solid color web page backgrounds on your web site. For instance, if you look very closely you will notice that while the example animation’s background appeared to be black, it is actually a very dark gray. Consequently, the animation’s border stands out from the background. In other words, if this animation were placed on a Web page with a black background, it would not integrate with the background color seamlessly. Now we will look at how to fix this problem.

To close the Animation Preview window, click on the X in the upper right corner or hit the Esc button.

This should select the first color square in the color table to the left of the preview window. The selected color swatch is indicated by a red outline around it. Now enter 0 for the Red (R), Green (G), and Blue (B) values (located below the color swatches). You have now changed the background color to pure black. If you look in the preview window you will see that you can no longer see the border between the background and the animation.

We have changed the frame delay for only the first frame. All three of the other frames are still set to 10 or 1/10^th of a second. Click on the Preview button on the toolbar. Observe that now the animation pauses briefly on the first frame, plays the last three frames quickly, and then pauses on the first frame again. You can leave the preview window open while you make the following timing changes. GMG’s preview window will automatically reflect any timing changes you make in the preview dialog box.

You can also adjust individual frame delays with the Frame Properties dialog box. Double-click on the third frame or select the third frame and click on the Frame Properties buttonon the toolbar or select the third frame and select Properties from the Frame menu. Double-click on the first field under the Animation section of the dialog box (the field that is followed by the text that reads "1/100th seconds delay after frame"). Enter a value of 200 and then hit OK. What does this do? Well, we have changed the value to 200/100ths of a second. This frame will now display for 2 seconds as you can see if you watch the animation preview again.

This animation doesn’t look very good with frame 1 set to display for half a second and frame 3 set to play for two seconds. It looked much better when all the frames played at the same rate. Fortunately, GMG allows you to make global changes to an animation, including frame delay edits. To do this, select Global Properties from the Frame menu. Notice that the dialog looks almost exactly like the Frame Properties dialog; the difference is that any changes made here will affect all of the frames in the animation, not just one. Click in the first field below the Animation section, type the number 5 and hit OK. This will change all of the frame delays to 5/100ths of a second. Now look at the animation in the Preview Animation dialog box and watch that sucker go!

As you can see, the looping setting determines how many times the animation replays. You can set an animation to play anywhere from only one time to continuous looping. A setting of "0" plays the animation continuously and any other number establishes the actual number of times the animation will loop. For instance, if you enter 10 for the loop setting, the animation will play 10 times and then stop. GMG allows you to adjust the looping settings either via the toolbar or the Animation Properties dialog box.