Just to try something fun, I zipped the folder of animated GIFs I’ve collected over the years, changed the .zip to .cbz in the filename and uploaded it to Panels to see if wonderfulness would happen. Alas…
Is it possible to add this functionality to panels? Pretty please?
Joe
We’ll add GIF as a valid image format and that would probably make the first frame appear on-screen. iOS doesn’t have native support for animated GIFs, and we would have to implement it. Even though it might be cool, sounds like out of a comic reader scope.
I’m not a developer, so I realize that I have no idea how much work implementing animated GIF support involves. Rather, I was a Web Designer and applications UI specialist before I retired (at 50 =) ).
I would counter that if it sounds cool, it is cool. And you shouldn’t limit your “scope” because the the more you let people have fun in your app, the more popular your app will become and there will be competitors but you will be leading the way. You’ve already nailed gesture-based content library nav. You’ve nailed the right way to do it. Every time I accidentally swipe down to close a novel in Apple’s Books app, I feel miffed at having to hunt-for and poke the little back-arrow in the upper left. It’s why I suggested awhile back that you guys eat their lunch.
If Panels goes “oh, by the way, GIF-animated comics now work” artists and writers will flock to your platform and people will download Panels just to see that work come alive. There’s a guy out there actually producing this type of comic book and because there’s no GIF enabled platform, he created an augmented reality app that makes his physical comics come alive on your phone screen if you aim your phone camera at one. Rob Shields is a great example of where comics are headed, and you want to be aiming your app at where the puck is going, rather than where it is now. Check him out: Rob Shields’ Neon Wasteland:
I just think it’s great to see someone has actually intentionally placed themselves in a position to invent what a comic book can be now that we’re in the future and viewing them on a supercomputer tablet. In 10 years, still comic books will seem quaint dude, like silent films. Onscreen motion as a new and potent element of this traditional storytelling medium would be a sea change for the medium itself (and it would transform Panels into a leapfrog product). Swords would begin to swing. TIE fighters could fly at you, firing. Iron Man donning his armor, imagine that. Simply enabling motion would change the entire medium. And after that you could keep pushing it forward by providing more new ways to enable the storyteller.