The images get resized and lose the animation in the process. I have never looked into resizing while maintaining the animation.

ok thanks, yeah i noticed that, i did some code changes to get the thumbs to properly resize on gif animations

Be interesting to see your code changes posted here for everyone else whi might be interested ;-) I suppose you reworked the code to decompose the gif into frames, thumbnail , do the resize and then re-assemble the frames back to store the animated gif ?

well fortunately my web host has imagemagick installed, so I was able to use that, but the method you mentioned above would be the alternative, more details i read are here:

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/718491/resize-animated-gif-file-without-destroying-animation

I have a custom use for elgg/tidypics.  my site allows users to generate images / animated gifs and it stores those images to the gallery/user albums. here is the relevant code i did for it:

            //create large thumb (note: changed to replace orig image as large thumb)
                $fp = fopen($fileFullPath,'r');
                $thumblarge = stream_get_contents($fp);
                fclose($fp);
                $thumb = new ElggFile();
                $thumb->setMimeType($mime);
                $thumb->setFilename($prefix."largethumb".$filestorename);
                $thumb->open("write");
                if ($thumb->write($thumblarge)) {
                    $file->largethumb = $prefix."largethumb".$filestorename;
                }
                else {
                    $thumb->delete();
                }
                $thumb->close();
               
                //create  thumbnail and thumbsmall
                if ( $mime == 'image/gif') {

                    $fName = $fullpath . $name;
                    $coalesce = $fullpath . $baseName . "_coalesce.gif";
                    $commandline = "/usr/bin/convert " . $fName . " -coalesce " . $coalesce;

                    $output = shell_exec($commandline);
                   
                    $newNameTh = $fullpath . $baseName . "_thumbnail.gif";
                    $commandline = "/usr/bin/convert -size 200x200 " . $coalesce.
                        " -resize 60x60! " . $newNameTh;
                    $output = shell_exec($commandline);
                   
                    $newNameThSmall = $fullpath . $baseName . "_thumbsmall.gif";
                    $commandline = "/usr/bin/convert -size 200x200 " . $coalesce.
                        " -resize 153x153! " . $newNameThSmall;
                    $output = shell_exec($commandline);
                   
                    $fpTh = fopen($newNameTh,'r');
                    $thumbnail = stream_get_contents($fpTh);
                    fclose($fpTh);
                    $thumb = new ElggFile();
                    $thumb->setMimeType($mime);
                    $thumb->setFilename($prefix."thumb".$filestorename);
                    $thumb->open("write");
                    if ($thumb->write($thumbnail)) {
                        $file->thumbnail = $prefix."thumb".$filestorename;
                    }
                    else {
                        $thumb->delete();
                    }
                    $thumb->close();
                   
                    $fpSmall = fopen($newNameThSmall,'r');
                    $thumbsmall = stream_get_contents($fpSmall);
                    fclose($fpTh);
                    $thumb = new ElggFile();
                    $thumb->setMimeType($mime);
                    $thumb->setFilename($prefix."smallthumb".$filestorename);
                    $thumb->open("write");
                    if ($thumb->write($thumbsmall)) {
                        $file->smallthumb = $prefix."smallthumb".$filestorename;
                    }
                    else {
                        $thumb->delete();
                    }
                    $thumb->close();

                }
                else {
                     try {
                        $thumbsmall = get_resized_image_from_existing_file(
                        $file->getFilenameOnFilestore(),153,153, true);
                        $thumb = new ElggFile();
                        $thumb->setMimeType($mime);
                        $thumb->setFilename($prefix."smallthumb".$filestorename);
                        $thumb->open("write");
                        if ($thumb->write($thumbsmall)) {
                            $file->smallthumb = $prefix."smallthumb".$filestorename;
                        }
                        else {
                            $thumb->delete();
                        }
                        $thumb->close();
                       
                       
                        $thumbnail = get_resized_image_from_existing_file(
                        $file->getFilenameOnFilestore(),60,60, true);
                        $thumb = new ElggFile();
                        $thumb->setMimeType($mime);
                        $thumb->setFilename($prefix."smallthumb".$filestorename);
                        $thumb->open("write");
                        if ($thumb->write($thumbsmall)) {
                            $file->smallthumb = $prefix."smallthumb".$filestorename;
                        }
                        else {
                            $thumb->delete();
                        }
                        $thumb->close();

                    }
                    catch (Exception $e) { $thumbsmall = false; }
                }
            }

thx for posting yr code for gif anims.. i hope others find it useful. i remember someone was asking about gif anim for profiel icons. maybe they will see this.

yes, imagemajick does make it easier witht he one line conversion rather than gd's 4 command sequence ;-)

ok so i lied ;-)

GD will not do it in 4 commands.. rather 4 *steps.. each one involving lots of code ;-(

So if your host does not ImageMajick, but only GD.. you're kinda stuck.. ;-(

I was the one who wanted animated gifs for avatars. :p

I'm rewriting the avatar thing completely though.

ETA is about 200 years at this stage because there's so much else I have to do, hah.