¶ Animated PNG Images
It is NOT RECOMMENDED to use APNG files with FancyMenu. You should use FMA files instead, because they are way more optimized. They load faster, eat less memory and play more smoothly. They also have a way smaller chance to produce errors and problems.
APNGs are an animated version of PNG images, making it possible to have the same features as with a GIF, but in full, lossless PNG quality!
FancyMenu has built-in APNG support, but it's a bit picky about what APNGs are supported.
It needs uncompressed APNGs that are not interlaced.
¶ Making APNG Animations
You would be surprised how difficult it is to find a good APNG editor, especially with options to disable compression and interlacing.
A great choice for an editor is ScreenToGif, which is actually a tool to record GIFs and APNGs of your screen, but it's also great to make normal APNGs by skipping the record part and directly loading into the editor!
¶ Open The Editor
The first thing you see after opening ScreenToGif is this screen. Click on Editor here.
¶ Load the Frames
Now you need your PNG frames. Drag-&-Drop them into the editor.
¶ Frame Delay
To configure the delay between frames, select the frame(s) you want to edit, switch to the Edit tab and in the Delay (Duration) section, click on Override.
¶ Looping
The looping behavior can be configured in the Save As menu. Take a look at the next step for how to open this menu.
¶ Exporting the APNG
Now you're ready to switch to the File tab again to click on Save As.
In the save menu, make sure to:
- Set the file type to APNG (first setting, you maybe need to scroll to the top of the menu first)
- Disable Detect Unchanged Pixels
You can also configure the looping behavior in the that menu! Disabling Looped Apng will make the APNG not loop at all, and when enabling it you can choose between a specific number of loops or infinite looping.
¶ Using the APNG in FancyMenu
Now you can copy your APNG file to /config/fancymenu/assets/. Then you will be able to use it for nearly everything that accepts images.
It is really important that the APNG file name ends with
.apng!
FancyMenu will not be able to identify the image as APNG if it's not ending with.apng.