Gifsicle

Before all the cool interface designs that make work so much easier and easy to grasp by everyone, complex operations had to be performed in the Command Prompt. However, this practice is far from being outdated and obsolete, with Gifsicle being proof, letting you enhance, merge, and manipulate GIF animations.

Sure enough, just like any command line utility, there’s no setup involved. It’s best to use the Command Prompt with administrator privileges, so that Gifsicle can benefit from all computer resources. What’s more, GIF files you want to process need to be in the same folder, otherwise things get too complicated for no reason.

You notice there are two terminal files you can take advantage of, namely Gifsicle, and Gifdiff. The second is used to compare two different GIF files, showing whether or not the two animations contain identical frames. In case they don’t a list is printed out to display redundant frames, their number, background colors, and version info, with corresponding parameters to use for proper determination.

Gifsicle is the component you use to manipulate these animations. It’s best to overview documentation so you know what parameters need to be applied, and how. One simple aspect is the possibility to set delay between frames, and this comes in handy if the GIF plays way too fast.

There are also some general parameters with which to crop, flip, resize, or rotate a GIF animation. This doesn’t need to be performed on more files, but there’s also a batch command that lets you manipulate more GIFs at once. Chances are you work with high-quality animations that bundle a lot of colors, but Gifsicle points out what needs to be done. The result is always in the source folder.

Bottom line is that not everyone is thrilled to work with shiny designs and interfaces, and is one of the reasons command line utilities are still alive. Moreover, chances of errors are reduced through this process, and Gifsicle is a powerful example of the diversity of editing options which can be performed even on graphic elements.