Restart a gif animation without reloading the file

Question

Is it possible to restart a gif animation without downloading the file every time? My current code looks like this:

var img = new Image();
img.src = 'imgages/src/myImage.gif';

$('#id').css('background-image', 'url("' + img.src + '?x=' + Date.now() + '")' );

Edit

When I insert the gif into the dom it didn't restart the gif animation. I can only achieve this by appending a random string to the image src but this will download the image again.

I want to know if it is possible to restart the gif animation without downloading the gif.

Answer 1

I've had similar requirement.

var img = document.createElement("img"),
    imageUrl = "http://i73.photobucket.com/albums/i231/charma13/love240.gif";
img.src = imageUrl;
document.body.appendChild(img);

window.restartAnim = function () {
    img.src = "";
    img.src = imageUrl;
}

Answer 2

for example on facebook - animated emoticons are not .gifs but a set of static frames on png file with dynamically set background offset. This way you have full control over your animation from javascript - you can even pause/unpause it or change its speed.

It's possible to split your .gif file into separate frames and generate a .png file on server side dynamically.

This looks like a good weekend project for me ;)