[twinBASIC] - Simple Animated GIF Player with WinRT / BitmapDecoder & Multi-Threading

I have just translated my previous VB6 GIF Player project to twinBASIC 64-bit and also introduced multi-threading capabilities to take advantage of this feature exclusive to tB. Now each delegate will complete its work on a new thread.

Here is the demo project: Attachment 194626 (download the test GIFs from the VB6 thread linked above as they were too big to include in the attachment).

This is another twist on the animated GIF player above only instead of manually decoding the frames and rendering them individually with a Timer, this time all the nitty-gritty details are abstracted by a XAML Image control hosted inside a regular PictureBox. This makes the code much shorter and cleaner:

Code:

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Private WithEvents cImage As cImage, bFlag As Boolean

Private Sub Form_Load()
    Set cImage = New cImage
    If cImage.InitIsland(picImage.hWnd) Then cImage.LoadImage "https://www.vbforums.com/images/ieimages/2025/03/2.gif": bFlag = Not bFlag
End Sub

Private Sub Form_Click()
    cImage.LoadImage IIf(bFlag, "https://media.githubusercontent.com/media/SixLabors/ImageSharp/main/tests/Images/Input/Gif/cheers.gif", "https://www.vbforums.com/images/ieimages/2025/03/2.gif")
    bFlag = Not bFlag
End Sub

Private Sub cImage_ImageOpened(imgWidth As Long, imgHeight As Long)
    With picImage
        .Move .Left, .Top, .ScaleX(imgWidth, vbPixels, .ScaleMode), .ScaleY(imgHeight, vbPixels, .ScaleMode)
    End With
End Sub

Private Sub cImage_ImageFailed(sErrorMessage As String)
    MsgBox sErrorMessage, vbOKOnly + vbExclamation, App.Title
End Sub

Private Sub picImage_Resize()
    With picImage
        Width = .Width + (Width - ScaleWidth) + .Left * 2
        Height = .Height + (Height - ScaleHeight) + .Top * 2
    End With
End Sub

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Using the {Binding} markup extension, the Image control's Source property is bound to a Uri object thus enabling it to play GIFs both from a web address or a local file. Additional features include:

- Click on the image to Stop/Start the animation
- Click on the form to switch between two sample GIFs loaded from different URLs
- The control raises events to signal whether the image was opened successfully or failed (to due to an incorrect file format or URL address)

Here is the demo project: Attachment 195187 (compile the executable to run the demo)

Requirements: Windows 10 or later!

Need pictures or the picture is incomplete.

Give it a whirl if you want the full experience, not much point in taking a picture of an animated GIF! :D

Will do!