Can animated greeting cards be done thru HTML alone?

[Arni Mator]

Can someone tell me if it's possible to do animated greeting cards through HTML? Without the use of Flash but say, just your average GIF animation and whatever scripting you add to it to create your greetings-can this be done? Is it possible to do this rather than doin'it through asp,CGI, coldfusion, or other too technical mumbo-jumbo scripting? I've tried to post this question on the HTML forum but no dice....

[thenewrules]

They were doing it that way long before Flash came along

[f i s c h]

Well, no. Yes, it will come out as HTML in the end, but you need the ASP/CGI/PHP behind it to process the data (email addresses, names) etc and other dynamic elements, like storing the user on a database and deleting the card after a certain time or whatever the requirements are.

No, the ASP or whatever you use will process the data, and put it into the HTML which then gets displayed in the browser.

Just remember, HTML is a Markup Language, which means it's not scripting. It doesn't actually DO anything, it just makes the page look pretty, and holds the basic content. The scripting coding behind it, if it's needed (esp. for these greeting cards) will actually DO the stuff, like showing email addresses, sending confimation emails etc.

If this doesn't really make any sense, then head over to http://www.aspin.com and search for 'greeting cards' or whatever and you should find some royalty free examples to use for free, but yes, before flash they were all done using animated gifs. Actually, they still are!

If you don't want to make you own, which can be a dunting task if it's on a large scale, then you can sign up for free accounts where they supply hosting, and you can upload your own pictures for the cards. Just search in any searc engine!

Hope this is of some kinda help,

Nick

[Arni Mator]

Originally posted by f i s c h
Well, no. Yes, it will come out as HTML in the end, but you need the ASP/CGI/PHP behind it to process the data (email addresses, names) etc and other dynamic elements, like storing the user on a database and deleting the card after a certain time or whatever the requirements are.

No, the ASP or whatever you use will process the data, and put it into the HTML which then gets displayed in the browser.

Just remember, HTML is a Markup Language, which means it's not scripting. It doesn't actually DO anything, it just makes the page look pretty, and holds the basic content. The scripting coding behind it, if it's needed (esp. for these greeting cards) will actually DO the stuff, like showing email addresses, sending confimation emails etc.

If this doesn't really make any sense, then head over to http://www.aspin.com and search for 'greeting cards' or whatever and you should find some royalty free examples to use for free, but yes, before flash they were all done using animated gifs. Actually, they still are!

If you don't want to make you own, which can be a dunting task if it's on a large scale, then you can sign up for free accounts where they supply hosting, and you can upload your own pictures for the cards. Just search in any searc engine!

Hope this is of some kinda help,

Nick

Are there any tutorial anywhere on the web on how to create this daunting task by using the kind of scripting you have mention?