Animated GIF in HTML5 canvas

Question

In HTML5, how can I draw easily (no too much complex code please) an animated GIF in a canvas that works (with drawImage only first frame is shown in the canvas)

Answer 1

Well if automated canvas animation of gif files isn't available, you could try using sprite-sheets, but that indeed would require a bit more code.

var img_obj = {
    'source': null,
    'current': 0,
    'total_frames': 16,
    'width': 16,
    'height': 16
};

var img = new Image();
img.onload = function () { // Triggered when image has finished loading.
    img_obj.source = img;  // we set the image source for our object.
}
img.src = 'img/filename.png'; // contains an image of size 256x16
                              // with 16 frames of size 16x16

function draw_anim(context, x, y, iobj) { // context is the canvas 2d context.
    if (iobj.source != null)
        context.drawImage(iobj.source, iobj.current * iobj.width, 0,
                          iobj.width, iobj.height,
                          x, y, iobj.width, iobj.height);
    iobj.current = (iobj.current + 1) % iobj.total_frames;
                   // incrementing the current frame and assuring animation loop
}

function on_body_load() { // ...
    var canvas = document.getElementById('canvasElement');
                 // 
    var context = canvas.getContext("2d");

    setInterval((function (c, i) {
                return function () {
                    draw_anim(c, 10, 10, i);
                };
    })(context, img_obj), 100);
}

This is how I'd tackle the problem. Hope this has been helpful. (tested)