Technical data

Preparing Web Graphics 81
Notice the playback control buttons on the right, below the frames.
q Click the Play button to preview the animation, and click
Stop to freeze it. Try the other playback buttons, while you're
at it!
To display the Visual Reference topic describing the various features of
the Animation tab, click the button and then click anywhere on the
tab.
Let’s examine the Swirl animation more closely.
In this file (as in any imported GIF animation) the
individual frames each have been assigned one
layer in the PhotoPlus image.
On the Layer Manager tab, the layer stack for this
animation corresponds nicely with the frame
sequence, with default namesin this case,
“Frame 1 of 6” through “Frame 6 of 6.”
q Select Frame 1 on the Animation tab.
Notice that on the Layer Manager only the “Frame 1” layer is marked
as shown, with an open-eye button; the other layers are all hidden, with
closed-eye buttons.
q Now select Frame 2 on the Animation tab.
This time, only the “Frame 2” layer will be shown, and the rest will be
hidden. And so on with the other frames.
The above example, with its one-to-one correspondence between
frames and layers, is easy to grasp but deceptively simple. Don’t make
the mistake of thinking that a “frame” is just another name for a “layer.”
Frames in PhotoPlus are actually much more versatile!
Key point: A so-called “frame” is really just a particular state or
snapshot of the various layers in the image, in terms of three layer
properties:
1 Shown/Hidden: Which layers are shown and which are hidden
2 Position: The position of the contents of each “shown” layer
3 Opacity: The opacity setting of each “shown” layer