For some posts code is not enough. An animated image that shows the effect of a code snipped helps much more than hundreds words of additional explanation. But how can we create animations like this one I made for the progress bar example?
ScreenToGif
The little tool ScreenToGif is a great help. You can start recording your screen without the need to spend hours in learning the tool itself. You find the animated documentation here. If you like a bit more static images you can follow along here.
First download and install the tool on your computer. The installer has nothing special you need to be aware of and clicking on “Next” is all you need to do. If you do not already have .Net 4.8 on your computer the installer will tell you that you need to install it.
When the installation worked without any error, you can start ScreenToGif. It welcomes you with this window:
We want to record our screen, therefore, click on the Record button. You now get a frame in which ScreenToGif will record your screen. Adjust the size of the frame to fit the part you want to record and move it above. If you need a specific width and height you can enter it in the bottom row of the frame:
You can start recording by clicking the red button or with F7. Then do what you want to record and when you are done, hit F8 or click on “Stop“.
You now get a new window in which you can see the different frames of your recording. You probably recorded too much at the beginning and at the end. If this is the case, select the frames you do not need and delete them:
The last step is now to save your GIF. You can select options like an endless loop and various other optimisations. So far I could create my animated GIFs with the default values and I suggest you try them for your first attempt:
Now check if the GIF is what you want. If not, go back to ScreenToGif and optimise it until you are happy with the result.
Conclusion
I like this tool for its simplicity. It took my a few tries until I got my first animation the way I wanted but that took less than 10 minutes from download to GIF. There are other tools that offer the same functionality, but for my needs I am happy with ScreenToGif.