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From: dski@cameonet.cameo.com.tw
Subject: Re: Joan's Animated Pixie (Hold spacebar down)
Date: 1997/04/23
Message-ID: <5jjm6k$3eu@reader.seed.net.tw>#1/1
X-Deja-AN: 236703220
Organization: Cameo Communications, Inc.
Newsgroups: alt.ascii-art
Originator: dski@


Veronica Karlsson (e93-vkn@sm.luth.se.nospam) wrote --

> I think it would probably work if the picture was BIGGER..... (and
> probably the best size would be very different for different
> computers...)

Absolutely. Even on systems with a fixed 24-by-80 text-based display,
different programs use different numbers of lines for text.

> When I tried holding the space-bar down I accidentally flew too far and
> marked a large number of unread messaged read and had some trouble
> finding my way back...

Super-old no-frills news readers will do that. There's nothing wrong with
using such programs, but you really ought to scroll through the animation
*slowly* the first time to check it out.

> I have found another way to animate ascii but when I tried that the
> animations went much too fast and all you saw was a flicker and then the
> last picture in the series. Then you could make gif animations of them
> and even though those are cool I don't want to call them "ascii
> animations"....
>
> I think the new java method is the best so far (of the ones that I have
> seen) and I also think that in a couple of years java will become more
> common.

Space-bar animations, I'm sure, are the oldest. Then we had ANSI
animations; then HTML animations; then GIF; and now Java.... Somehow I
doubt Java will become universal (by which I mean as widespread as ASCII)
or, even if it does, that it will remain so for very long.

> I think our greatest problem here is still compatibility between
> different types of computers.

That's why the "space-bar" method is best, at least in this newsgroup.
Sooner or later everyone learns how to download any interesting picture
to their own machine, and then they can make it work in the software they
use. The diver animation that someone recently posted looked good, but
the vertical spacing was unsuitable for my screen, so I downloaded it and
added blank lines for the hardware and software I use. Now I can retrieve
it with my favorite editor and enjoy it at any time.

Dan Strychalski
dski@cameonet.cameo.com.tw