Animated GIF in IE stopping

Question

Does anyone know a work around to make animated GIF's continue to be animated after you click a link or submit a form on the page your on in IE? This works fine in other browsers.

Thanks.

Answer 1

A very easy way is to use jQuery and SimpleModal plugin. Then when I need to show my "loading" gif on submit, I do:

$('*').css('cursor','wait');
$.modal("<table style='white-space: nowrap'><tr><td style='white-space: nowrap'><b>Please wait...</b></td><td><img alt='Please wait' src='loader.gif' /></td></tr></table>", {escClose:false} );

Answer 2

Found this solution at http://timexwebdev.blogspot.com/2009/11/html-postback-freezes-animated-gifs.html and it WORKS! Simply re-load image before setting to visible. Call the following Javascript function from your button's onclick:

function showLoader()
{
   //*** Reload the image for IE ***
   document.getElementById('loader').src='./images/loader.gif';
   //*** Let's make the image visible ***
   document.getElementById('loader').style.visibility = 'visible';
}

Answer 3

Here's a jsFiddle that works just fine on form submit with method="post". The spinner is added on form submit event.

$("form").bind("submit", onFormSubmit);

function onFormSubmit() {
    setTimeout(showSpinner, 1);
}

function showSpinner() {
    $("body").append($('<img id="spinner" src="spinner.gif" alt="Spinner" />'));
}

See jsFiddle code here

Test it in your IE browser here

Answer 4

I realize that this is an old question and that by now the original posters have each found a solution that works for them, but I ran across this issue and found that VML tags do not fall victim to this IE bug. Animated GIFs still move during page unload when placed on the IE browser using VML tags.

Notice I detected VML first before making the decision to use VML tags so this is working in FireFox and other browsers using normal animated GIF behavior.

Here's how I solved this.

<input class="myExitButton" type="button" value="Click me"  />

<div class="loadingNextPage" style="display:none" >
    <span style="left:-24px; POSITION: relative; WIDTH: 48px; DISPLAY: inline-block; HEIGHT: 48px" class="spinnerImageVml"><?xml:namespace prefix="rvml" ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:vml" /><rvml:group style="POSITION: absolute; WIDTH: 48px; HEIGHT: 48px; rotation: 1deg" class="rvml" coordsize = "47,47"><rvml:image style="POSITION: absolute; WIDTH: 48px; HEIGHT: 48px; TOP: 0px; LEFT: 0px" class="rvml" src="/images/loading_gray.gif" coordsize="21600,21600"></rvml:image></rvml:group></span>
    <img class="spinnerImage" src="/images/loading_gray.gif" alt="loading..." />
    <div>Just one moment while we access this information...</div>
</div>

<script language="javascript" type="text/javascript">
    window.LoadProgress = (function (progress, $) {

        var getdialogHeight = function (height) {
            var isIE = navigator.userAgent.toLowerCase().indexOf('msie') > -1;
            if (isIE) {
                return height + 'px';
            }
            return height;
        };

        var isVmlSupported = function () {
            var a = document.body.appendChild(document.createElement('div'));
            a.innerHTML = '<v:shape id="vml_flag1" adj="1" />';
            var b = a.firstChild;
            b.style.behavior = "url(#default#VML)";
            var supported = b ? typeof b.adj == "object" : true;
            a.parentNode.removeChild(a);
            return supported;
        };

        var showAnimationDuringPageUnload = function () {
            if (isVmlSupported()) {
                $(".loadingNextPage > .spinnerImage").hide();
            }
            else {
                $(".loadingNextPage > .spinnerImageVml").hide();
            }
        };

        var openLoadingMessage = function () {
            $(".loadingNextPage").dialog({
                modal: true,
                closeOnEscape: true,
                title: 'Please wait...',
                closeText: 'x',
                height: getdialogHeight(200),
                buttons: {
                    "Close": function () {
                        $(this).dialog("close");
                    }
                }
            });
        };

        $('.myExitButton').click(function () {
            openLoadingMessage();
            showAnimationDuringPageUnload();
            window.location.href = 'http://www.stackoverflow.com';
        });


        return progress;
    })(window.LoadProgress || {}, window.jQuery);
</script>

Naturally, this relies on jQuery, jQueryUI and requires an animated GIF of some type ("/images/loading_gray.gif").

Answer 5

IE assumes that the clicking of a link heralds a new navigation where the current page contents will be replaced. As part of the process for perparing for that it halts the code that animates the GIFs. I doubt there is anything you can do about it (unless you aren't actually navigating in which case use return false in the onclick event).

Answer 6

Here's what I did. All you have to to is to break up your GIF to say 10 images (in this case i started with 01.gif and ended with 10.gif) and specify the directory where you keep them.

HTML:

<div id="tester"></div>

JavaScript:

function pad2(number) {   
    return (number < 10 ? '0' : '') + number 
}
var 
    dirURL = 'path/to/your/images/folder',
    ajaxLoader = document.createElement('img');
ajaxLoader.className = 'ajax-image-loader';
jQuery(document).ready(function(){
    jQuery('#tester').append(ajaxLoader);
    set(0);
});
function set(i) {
    if (i > 10) i = 1;    
    img.src = dirURL + pad2(i) + '.gif';
    setTimeout(function() {
        set(++i);
    }, 100);    
}

This method works with IE7, IE8 and IE9 (althought for IE9 you could use spin.js). NOTE: I have not tested this in IE6 since I have no machine running a browser from the 60s, although the method is so simple it probably works even in IE6 and lower.