Every once in a while I find it useful to post a .gif (I use Licecap to create them) in order to illustrate a sequence of steps leading to an observation. Maybe a bug or maybe it is instruction. Regardless, I find .gifs often to be useful, and I know I have some users agreeing with me.
But apparently some users of this forum finds them to be annoying. Hmmm. That leaves us with a form of effective communication which annoys some users.
A key question is whether the .gif loops repeatedly or is it static until you click on it? For me (using Chrome Browser) it may loop once but is then static. Is this a matter of browser choice or maybe some setting within the browser? I think this (probably a browser variable?) is key question ONE.
Question TWO: I will try posting two useless (demo only) .gifs here. #1 is just the .gif file and #2 is zipped. Does zipping the .gif make it accessible without having it automatically loop for users who do not want to see it? Should we recommend posting only zipped .gifs?
On my Firefox browser, it repeats indefinitely until I stop it by clicking on the pause button. Consider me annoyed.
I did see this topic before replying to you by email. I also researched how to turn it off. It requires installing a Firefox plugin, or changing a flag under about:config by reaching under the hood clicking past an advanced config warning. Those are also annoyances I don’t want to go into, and beginners shouldn’t have to go near.
I don’t find .gifs annoying at all and can be even better than posting a video. I didn’t know there was a pause option since it doesn’t show up until I put my mouse pointer over the gif tho. Glad that was mentioned. I do like that option since I can freeze the image so I can see some detail that might otherwise be hard to see.
I do wish it would just sit until clicked tho, as a default. Maybe that can be done while creating the gif as well??? Some little known option that one can enable so that a click is needed?? That should make it acceptable to most everyone. It doesn’t do anything until requested. If one doesn’t like them, don’t click. Just a thought, if it is possible.
While I rarely post, I do read quite a lot of threads. I started a project ages ago but until I can get around to making the transformers, by hand, they kinda sit in limbo. I do want to try and keep up since KiCAD is such a fast moving target nowadays.
The video does not start automatically, the viewer must click it. The GIF starts automatically.
The video also doesn’t load automatically, so even if it is a much larger file, a viewer only needs to load that file if they want to play the video.
easier to create than gifs, most OS offer native video recording ability (e.g. on GNOME and derivatives hold down <ctrl><alt><shift>R to start a recording)
I don’t believe a video is generally larger than a gif. Usually it’s the other way round. If the video happens to be larger I think it’s due to different size/compression/codec settings used. You should get a video to the same size than a gif at the same quality.
I’m also in favor of using videos. Their quality is better and for more complex scenarios, the file size is much smaller than gifs. There is a reason even GIF-platforms like giphy use mp4 for their GIFs.
regarding the browser behaviour: firefox+edge browser. Both start automatically playing the animated gif, looping indefinitely. LMB-click on the gif pauses the animation.
My opinion: I prefer videos, but I admit that the the gif’s itself can be helpful for solving a question/issue. So if the user knows only tools to create animated gifs (or is more skilled in using these tools) then that’s fine for me. Everything which helps to solve a issue is good, the end justifies the means (not sure if this german saying is translated well).
regarding file size: even in todays world not every location offers high bandwidth internet connection. One of my working locations only gives me only a 1MBit connection. Some of the threads on this forum or on gitlab provided ~100Mbyte videos. The slow internet connection prevented me from participating at that issues. So I welcome users who at least think about this file size aspect.
I know that this sounds strange:
After I recorded the first video, I changed the default file behavior and I was then struggling yesterday to figure out how to switch to KiCad so as to record a video.
But I just now I recorded one of me typing here; I now have a 3.3 MB .mp4 video. So I will now record another brief .gif of me typing this.
The resulting .gif is 83 KB. I will be the first to admit a very imprecise comparison for file size. But we have a file size ratio mp4:Gif > 30:1!! And I think that it is much easier to operate the .gif recorder.
I suspect that the .mp4 recorder is recording frames at a fixed rate while the Licecap .gif recorder is looking for changes/motion. So Licecap may skip any idle moments and provide many fewer frames.
Further I reiterate that by zipping the .gif that nobody has to see it unless they want to.
I need to work on this a bit more. I am also open to further inputs.
I am getting the “hang” of recording a video using the camera icon in Win snipping tool. So I have gone back and forth between recording similar nonsense with Licecap and the Windows snipping tool. The .MP4s are generally an order of magnitude bigger or more.
Here are my settings. I suspect that you are using a tool which has settings which I do not see here: ?
Up until yesterday, video is something that I watch only, or I may have accidentally recorded a couple on my smartphone.
I have never heard of OBS or (a handbrake which was not in a car.)
I have never edited a video.
This is getting too complicated…But having said that, I am open to trying a simple “one and done” .mp4 screen shot video recorder which provides efficiently small file size for recording actions in using KiCad.
