6 ms·

I understand that they can be made to autoplay with no controls, but I don't even want the possibility of them being paused. This way the format has no choice b

I understand that they can be made to autoplay with no controls, but I don't even want the possibility of them being paused. This way the format has no choice but to behave as expected across everything.

PhasmaFelis 7y ago
There's nothing about allowing play/pause that prevents videos from behaving exactly like gifs. I've seen browsers with play/pause options for gifs, even.
- lccarrasco 7y ago
  Can you tell me of one, please? I'd like to check their implementation, most play/pausable gifs I see are only converted webms.
- silversconfused 7y ago
  The stop button used to stop all gifs on a page in firefox and internet explorer. Not sure if that was a bug or a feature though, since the stop button was generally not available when page load finished.
  - silversconfused 7y ago
    (Maybe I remembered wrong, someone else mentioned here that it was ESC, not stop)
    - Izkata 7y ago
      At least on Firefox, it was indeed stop. I believe it still works too, even though nowadays they hide the button, if you expose the functionality through an addon.
masklinn 7y ago
> I understand that they can be made to autoplay with no controls, but I don't even want the possibility of them being paused. Your opinions are just that, and usually overridable by the client. The client could even strip your media entirely. And gifs are pausable (used to be ESC though apparently you now need extensions). > This way the format has no choice but to behave as expected across everything. I've got bad news for you: once it reaches the client you're not in control anymore, you can only suggest behaviour.
souprock 7y ago
I don't see why we can't use the IMG tag for video and the VIDEO tag for images. They should be unified, with all the same media formats supported. IMG would autoplay, would not have sound, would loop, and would not have controls. VIDEO would be the opposite. For something like a plain JPG or PNG file, it just shows the one frame. Animated GIF files would of course benefit from the controls. The same should go for unification of the VIDEO and AUDIO tags. Play an audio file as video, and you get a black screen with sound. Play a video file as audio, and you just hear the sound.
- cflat 7y ago
  Agree. Safari has already made moves for this[1], but Chrome seems to be resistant[2]. [1] https://calendar.perfplanet.com/2017/animated-gif-without-the-gif/ https://calendar.perfplanet.com/2017/animated-gif-without-th... [2] https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=791658 https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=791658
- mr_toad 7y ago
  > IMG would autoplay, would not have sound, would loop, and would not have controls. Why do you hate my phone battery so much?
  - masklinn 7y ago
    They don't though. At similar quality and framerate, a video is much smaller than a GIF (so the radios can be shut down faster) and requires less power to playback (because it's offloaded to the hardware acceleration instead of being implemented entirely on the CPU). Your average smartphone can play 1080p video without breaking a sweat, not so with 1080p gifs. Hell, a laptop will have permanent high-CPU usage on 1080p gifs, as a video it's background noise (https://www.reddit.com/r/osx/comments/43rrf0/pixel_art_gif_as_desktop_background/czkrhzo/?context=42 https://www.reddit.com/r/osx/comments/43rrf0/pixel_art_gif_a...)
Arkanosis 7y ago
> I don't even want the possibility of them being paused That's downright hostile to the end user… https://www.w3.org/TR/UNDERSTANDING-WCAG20/time-limits-pause.html https://www.w3.org/TR/UNDERSTANDING-WCAG20/time-limits-pause...
- silversconfused 7y ago
  A behavior being unchanged for 30 years is hardly user hostile. It's reliable and trustworthy. Like a good tool should be.
  - untog 7y ago
    You used to be able to press the escape button to stop GIFs on the page. It's not unchanged for 30 years.
    - silversconfused 7y ago
      Browsers have changed, a lot, in sad and unfortunate ways like you mention here, but the gif format is pretty stable.
  - __jal 7y ago
    Any application that doesn't allow me to stop something from being annoying, will be stopped from being annoying by being uninstalled. If browsers made it such that I couldn't not stop .gif animations (or playing video, or...), I would trash that browser. Bluntly, you do not get to control my computer.
    - izzydata 7y ago
      The point is that they are more images than videos. They have no possible way to contain sounds so the annoyingness is limited to having unwanted images in your browser. You can tell your browser to block a particular still image. You can do the same thing to block a GIF. You don't need a pause/play feature on a 2-5 second sequence.

PhasmaFelis 7y ago

There's nothing about allowing play/pause that prevents videos from behaving exactly like gifs. I've seen browsers with play/pause options for gifs, even.

lccarrasco 7y ago
Can you tell me of one, please? I'd like to check their implementation, most play/pausable gifs I see are only converted webms.
silversconfused 7y ago
The stop button used to stop all gifs on a page in firefox and internet explorer. Not sure if that was a bug or a feature though, since the stop button was generally not available when page load finished.
- silversconfused 7y ago
  (Maybe I remembered wrong, someone else mentioned here that it was ESC, not stop)
  - Izkata 7y ago
    At least on Firefox, it was indeed stop. I believe it still works too, even though nowadays they hide the button, if you expose the functionality through an addon.

masklinn 7y ago

> I understand that they can be made to autoplay with no controls, but I don't even want the possibility of them being paused. Your opinions are just that, and usually overridable by the client. The client could even strip your media entirely. And gifs are pausable (used to be ESC though apparently you now need extensions). > This way the format has no choice but to behave as expected across everything. I've got bad news for you: once it reaches the client you're not in control anymore, you can only suggest behaviour.

souprock 7y ago

I don't see why we can't use the IMG tag for video and the VIDEO tag for images. They should be unified, with all the same media formats supported. IMG would autoplay, would not have sound, would loop, and would not have controls. VIDEO would be the opposite. For something like a plain JPG or PNG file, it just shows the one frame. Animated GIF files would of course benefit from the controls. The same should go for unification of the VIDEO and AUDIO tags. Play an audio file as video, and you get a black screen with sound. Play a video file as audio, and you just hear the sound.

cflat 7y ago
Agree. Safari has already made moves for this[1], but Chrome seems to be resistant[2]. [1] https://calendar.perfplanet.com/2017/animated-gif-without-the-gif/ https://calendar.perfplanet.com/2017/animated-gif-without-th... [2] https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=791658 https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=791658
mr_toad 7y ago
> IMG would autoplay, would not have sound, would loop, and would not have controls. Why do you hate my phone battery so much?
- masklinn 7y ago
  They don't though. At similar quality and framerate, a video is much smaller than a GIF (so the radios can be shut down faster) and requires less power to playback (because it's offloaded to the hardware acceleration instead of being implemented entirely on the CPU). Your average smartphone can play 1080p video without breaking a sweat, not so with 1080p gifs. Hell, a laptop will have permanent high-CPU usage on 1080p gifs, as a video it's background noise (https://www.reddit.com/r/osx/comments/43rrf0/pixel_art_gif_as_desktop_background/czkrhzo/?context=42 https://www.reddit.com/r/osx/comments/43rrf0/pixel_art_gif_a...)

Arkanosis 7y ago

> I don't even want the possibility of them being paused That's downright hostile to the end user… https://www.w3.org/TR/UNDERSTANDING-WCAG20/time-limits-pause.html https://www.w3.org/TR/UNDERSTANDING-WCAG20/time-limits-pause...

silversconfused 7y ago
A behavior being unchanged for 30 years is hardly user hostile. It's reliable and trustworthy. Like a good tool should be.
- untog 7y ago
  You used to be able to press the escape button to stop GIFs on the page. It's not unchanged for 30 years.
  - silversconfused 7y ago
    Browsers have changed, a lot, in sad and unfortunate ways like you mention here, but the gif format is pretty stable.
- __jal 7y ago
  Any application that doesn't allow me to stop something from being annoying, will be stopped from being annoying by being uninstalled. If browsers made it such that I couldn't not stop .gif animations (or playing video, or...), I would trash that browser. Bluntly, you do not get to control my computer.
  - izzydata 7y ago
    The point is that they are more images than videos. They have no possible way to contain sounds so the annoyingness is limited to having unwanted images in your browser. You can tell your browser to block a particular still image. You can do the same thing to block a GIF. You don't need a pause/play feature on a 2-5 second sequence.