Question

I have a WinForms app that displays an animated gif in the simplest possible way – there is a PictureBox that loads the .gif directly.

The code generated by the WinForms designer looks like this:

        // 
        // pictureBoxHomer
        // 
        this.pictureBoxHomer.BackgroundImageLayout = System.Windows.Forms.ImageLayout.None;
        this.pictureBoxHomer.Dock = System.Windows.Forms.DockStyle.Fill;
        this.pictureBoxHomer.Image = ((System.Drawing.Image)(resources.GetObject("pictureBoxHomer.Image")));
        this.pictureBoxHomer.Location = new System.Drawing.Point(3, 3);
        this.pictureBoxHomer.Name = "pictureBoxHomer";
        this.pictureBoxHomer.Size = new System.Drawing.Size(905, 321);
        this.pictureBoxHomer.SizeMode = System.Windows.Forms.PictureBoxSizeMode.CenterImage;
        this.pictureBoxHomer.TabIndex = 0;
        this.pictureBoxHomer.TabStop = false;

The image is, of course, this: http://media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m1di1xvwTe1qz97bf.gif

Problem: while this animated gif displays wondrously in the browser, it is running way too fast in the WinForms app, which is not as happy as needed. So:

Question: is there a way to slow down an animated gif in a WinForms app?

Answer 1

I believe the answer is rather image-related than C#. If you edit that specific image in a tool like GIMP and take a look at the layers, you’ll see it’s a composition of 10 layers (frames) but no “delay time” between them is set – it has (0ms) in layer’s attribute. You can edit layer’s attribute and change it by right-clicking on it and selecting that option in menu. Of course, at the end you have to export your new image and save it as a GIF, selecting “animated” in options.

I believe in this case (when no delay time between frames is specified) web browser and C# PicutureBox force their own,different, default values. So, if you put a delay let say 100ms, like described here in step 3, you’ll make the animation slow down.