Play Gif on Mouseover and Pause Gif on mouse out without replacing images?

Question

I\'m trying to look for an example of code that allows the user to animate a gif on mouseover and pause when mouse out. I\'ve seen many tutorials talking about this but I wa

Answer 1

There is not. Gif images can not "see" the mouse. They are merely images which display. In order to pause an animated gif it requires the swapping of a similar image which is not animated.

That being posted, there are jquery plug ins to animate a sprite consisting of static images. These plug ins would allow the sprites to pause on mouse over

Answer 2

So, I thought about it for a bit... You could do something cool like this:

First, break your gif into multiple images, then animate them with css keyframes.

#faux-gif {
    position: absolute;
    top: 0; left: 0; right: 0; bottom: 0;
    margin: auto;
    background-image: url(http://i.imgur.com/E2ee6fI.gif);
    background-repeat: no-repeat;
    background-attachment: fixed;
    background-position: center;
    width: 300px;
    height: 300px;
    /* animation: giffy 0.5s infinite linear; */
    /* no fade between frames */
    animation: giffy 0.5s infinite steps(1);
}

#faux-gif:hover {
    animation-play-state:paused;
}

@keyframes giffy {
    0%   { background-image: url('http://i.imgur.com/E2ee6fI.gif'); } 
    15%  { background-image: url('http://i.imgur.com/JIi0uul.gif'); }
    30%  { background-image: url('http://i.imgur.com/owNGnNN.gif');}
    45%  { background-image: url('http://i.imgur.com/2Ii6XOz.gif'); }
    60%  { background-image: url('http://i.imgur.com/ZmQBrQ5.gif'); }
    75%  { background-image: url('http://i.imgur.com/iAsfHyY.gif'); }
    90%  { background-image: url('http://i.imgur.com/AJwRblj.gif'); }
    100% { background-image: url('http://i.imgur.com/fx5wUNY.gif'); }
}

DEMO

JavaScript Version... Not tested very thoroughly, but this would be the basic idea.

window.onload = function() {

    function FauxGif(element, frames, speed) {
        this.currentFrame = 0,
        this.domElement   = element,
        this.frames       = frames || null,
        this.speed        = speed  || 200;
        this.interval;
        this.init();
    }

    FauxGif.prototype = {
        init: function() {
            // set the first one to the first image
            console.log(this.frames[0])
            this.domElement.style.backgroundImage = "url(" + this.frames[0] + ")";
        },
        pause: function() {
            clearInterval(this.interval);
        },
        resume: function() {
            var that = this;

            that.interval = setInterval(function(){
                that.currentFrame < that.frames.length - 1 ? that.currentFrame++ : that.currentFrame = 0;
                that.domElement.style.backgroundImage = "url(" + that.frames[that.currentFrame] + ")";
            }, this.speed);
        }
    }

    var frames = [
                    'http://i.imgur.com/E2ee6fI.gif',
                    'http://i.imgur.com/JIi0uul.gif',
                    'http://i.imgur.com/owNGnNN.gif',
                    'http://i.imgur.com/2Ii6XOz.gif',
                'http://i.imgur.com/ZmQBrQ5.gif',
                'http://i.imgur.com/iAsfHyY.gif',
                'http://i.imgur.com/AJwRblj.gif',
                'http://i.imgur.com/fx5wUNY.gif'
            ]

var elem = document.querySelector('#faux-gif'),
    gif  = new FauxGif(elem, frames);


elem.addEventListener('mouseenter', function(){
    gif.resume()
});

elem.addEventListener('mouseleave', function() {
    gif.pause();
});
}

DEMO