Short, Sweet, and to the point docs.

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1) Extract multigif source files using 'uncompress' and 'tar'.

2) Compile the multigif file following the instructions in its readme files.

3) Make a directory (above the webroot) for the multigif binary.

4) Edit the giftopics.php3 changing variables as needed.

5) Edit the animate.sh script changing directories as needed.

6) Place the animate.sh script with the giftopics.php3 script in a web directory.

7) Run the giftopics.php3 script and check for any errors.

8) Check your error_log file for any error messages.

9) Check to see if your completed animation file is where you wanted it to be put.

10) Link to the completed animation file from your website.

11) edit your cron to have the php script executed every x minutes.

Note:

This script can be very advanced and may be hard to get working right.

The script requires a version of GD that has GIF support. If you get an error saying
something like 'unknown command imagegif' then you need to make sure you have a older
version of GD.

Some people many need to make sure that animate.sh and/or multigif are chmod 755.

The first thing to check is that multigif generates an animated gif (check by uploading
a few gifs and running it as per animate.sh). The next thing to check is that all your
directories are correct. Remember that your webserver is running this program so they
may not be your actual directories (/usr/home/<username>/www/htdocs/forum/giftopics/)
- instead they may be your website directories (/forum/giftopics/). As always, check
your webserver error logs to see what errors/messages the script generates.

This script does what I need it to do, so features like:

Generating animated gifs for each forum - Random Advertisements placed in certain frames -
Additional info/animation effects in final gif

are just some of the additional features that could be in a 'professional version' of this
program.

Contact me at wandrer@glcomputers.com if you are interested in any of the above features.

5/8/00