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Hints and tricks

Animated GIFs under Windows

First make sure that you have properly installed the Netpbm package as well as Gifsicle. One can install the Windows versions of the programs or the Cygwin ports. The following executables must be accessible from the command prompt (be on PATH) :
  • ppmcolormap
  • pnmremap
  • ppmtogif
  • gifsicle
For PyVib2 1.0 the "which" command must be also accessible (installed by default with Cygwin). Starting from PyVib2 1.1, it is no more a requirement. To check if the executables are on PATH :
  • start the command prompt (cmd.exe)
  • invoke the above listed executables
If any of the invocations fails :
  • Find the directories where the executables are
  • Open the System properities by clicking Start > Control Panel > System and go to the Advanced tab
  • Add the directories (separated by semicolon) to the PATH variable (create one if necessary)
  • Apply the changes
  • Open a new command prompt and repeat the tests. If you have the old command prompt opened, do not use it, since the applied changes do not affect it.
Finally, test if gifs can be produced properly :
  • Save benzene_test.ppm to any directory
  • Start the command prompt and change to that directory
  • Perform the following two calls : 
    pnmcolormap 256 benzene_test.ppm > palette
pnmremap -mapfile palette benzene_test.ppm | ppmtogif --transparent=#646464 > benzene_test.gif
  • The produced transparent benzene_test.gif should look like this :

Known issues

If you are going to use Netpbm from GnuWin32, install version 10.18.4 (10.27 does not work properly).
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