Changing the logo animation

Every time you submit data on a Web page or visit a new page, your browser will start the animation of the Windows flag (also known as a throbber) in the upper-right corner of your screen. The Windows flag is a nice animation, but why not replace that animation with one you made

yourself? Many very cool animated GIFs are available on the Web that you can download for free. This section will show you how to use those animated GIF image files that you can download as a replacement for the Windows flag.

To do this, you will need to have two applications downloaded and installed.The first application is Microsoft's Tweak UI PowerToy.This can be downloaded at the PowerToyÕs Web site, located at www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/pro/downloads/powertoys.asp.The other application that you will use is a free app called BitStrip, which is developed by Darrell L. A copy of this free application can be downloaded from his site at www.virtualplastic.net/ redllar/bitstrip.html.Once you have installed Tweak UI and extracted BitStrip,you are ready to get started.

To change the throbber, perform the following steps:

1. First, find the image that you want to use as your new animation. Many animation sites can be found on the Internet. My favorite site is called the Animation Factory. Located at www.AnimationFactory.com, you will find thousands of high-quality animated graphics. The default size of the small animation is 26 + 26 pixels (this is the default animation that is shown on most computers). The large animation is 38 + 38. You will want to find an image that is smaller than or the same size as those dimensions. If you can only find a large image, try resizing the image with an animated GIF editor. If you cannot properly resize the image, you will not have any problems other than it just might look a little strange. Once you have found an image that you want to use, you are ready
to prep the image file.

2. Internet Explorer only accepts replacement animations in a specific format. All replacement animations must be saved as a bitmap. However, bitmaps cannot be used to store animations like GIFs can. To solve that problem, Internet Explorer reads the bitmap like it is a film projector. Therefore, we need to convert the animated GIF file into one tall bitmap image that has all of the frames arranged vertically. To do this, use the BitStrip program. Start up BitStrip and open up your source animated GIF that you want to convert by clicking the Browse to GIF File button.

3. Once you have the image file selected, click the Vertical button.

4. If it looks good, then save the file as a bitmap by clicking the Save Output As button.

5. You now have converted your animated GIF into a format that the browser can read. The next step is to tell the browser to use the new file. To do this, you will want to start up Tweak UI, which is listed in the Start Menu under Windows XP PowerToys.

6. When Tweak UI has started up, expand Internet Explorer and select either small or large animation depending on which one your computer is currently displaying. By default, Windows XP shows the small animation unless you have changed it.

7. You will now see all of the throbber settings for Internet Explorer. Click the Custom radio button, so that you can specify your own file to use for the animation.

8. Next, click the Change Busy Image button and select the bitmap file that you just converted in step 4.

9. After you have selected your image, it should show up in the Preview box. If the image looks good, click the OK button to save your changes.

You are not done with changing the browser animated logo. To see the new animation in action, you will have to restart all instances of Internet Explorer that were open while you were changing the animation. The next time you start up IE, the new animation should be displayed. If that is not the case, then try using BitStrip again on the source animated graphic file to create a new bitmap and then repeat step 8.