JIF - Terminal GIF Viewer

A modern, high-performance GIF viewer for your terminal built with Bubbletea and Lipgloss.

Installation

Quick Install (Linux/macOS)

curl -sSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Gaurav-Gosain/jif/main/install.sh | bash

Download Pre-built Binary

Download the latest release for your platform from the releases page.

# Extract and run
tar xzf jif_*.tar.gz
./jif animation.gif

Go Install

go install github.com/Gaurav-Gosain/jif/cmd/jif@latest

Build from Source

git clone https://github.com/Gaurav-Gosain/jif
cd jif
make build
./bin/jif animation.gif

Usage

# View a local GIF
jif animation.gif

# View a remote GIF
jif https://example.com/animation.gif

# Show help
jif --help

# Show version
jif --version

Keybindings

Key	Action
Space	Pause/Resume
n / →	Next frame
p / ←	Previous frame
?	Toggle help
q / Ctrl+C	Quit

Press ? while viewing to see the help overlay.

Features

• Halfblock rendering for 2x vertical resolution
• High-quality Lanczos3 image scaling
• Progressive loading animation
• Proper GIF disposal method handling
• Remote URL support (HTTP/HTTPS)
• Automatic terminal resize handling
• Full-screen alternate buffer mode

Technical Details

Rendering

Uses Unicode halfblock characters (▀ and ▄) to achieve double vertical resolution. Each terminal cell displays two pixels vertically:

• Top pixel: foreground color
• Bottom pixel: background color

GIF Support

Properly handles all GIF disposal methods:

• DisposalNone (0): Keep previous frame
• DisposalBackground (1): Clear to background
• DisposalPrevious (2): Restore previous state

This ensures accurate rendering of complex animated GIFs.

Development

Run Tests

make test

Build Binary

make build

Generate Test Data

make generate-testdata

License

MIT License - see LICENSE file for details

Author

@Gaurav-Gosain