[thelist] JavaScript Menu Problems

Joe Crawford jcrawford at avencom.com
Thu Jun 21 11:45:17 CDT 2001


"Stephens, Ann" wrote:
> I designed my page in Fireworks 4 using the Popup Menu feature and then
> imported it into Dreamweaver 4. Fireworks scripts that I'm calling from
> Dreamweaver templates. The scripts are fw_menu.js and load_menus.js (the
> latter was originally in the template file, but I removed it to a separate
> file) and can be found at http://www.ci.concord.ca.us/Templates/fw_menu.js
> and http://www.ci.concord.ca.us/Templates/load_menus.js. These are causing
> my pages (http://www.ci.concord.ca.us/) to load way too slow! I'm pretty
> clueless on JavaScript (though I can manage to find lines in the file and
> make changes, like the links for the menus). Can anyone give me suggestions
> on getting the scripts to load more quickly? I've tried pages without the
> scripts and they seem to load nicely and I can disable the active scripting
> in IE and get these to load fairly quickly despite the number of graphics on
> the page. I like this method of site navigation (and so does my boss, so...)
> and would like to find a solution other than disabling this menu system.

Looks like you need to build something new.

I commented on this a few weeks ago. (below) - perhaps you missed it.

Another note - I think personally, that as a city site, you need to
abandon the wizzy-ness, and focus on html 3.2 compatible interaction. I
have serious doubts about the relative value of those clever menus given
the requirements of government institutions vis-a-vis accessibility. I
rather think that an audience of 2 (you and your boss)'s pleasure with
the current navigation should not outweigh the requirements to be
accessible to all.

Not news you want to hear, no doubt, and I am loathe to suggest re-doing
everything, but in this case it seems appropriate. :-(

	- joe


-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: [thelist] Site Loads too Slowly
Date: Tue, 12 Jun 2001 16:57:06 -0700
From: Joe Crawford <jcrawford at avencom.com>
Organization: AVENCOM: http://www.avencom.com/
To: thelist at lists.evolt.org
References: <B1FAB4AC6696D311AC0A0000F6AF745AEC11EC at CONCORDMAIL>

"Stephens, Ann" wrote:
> > I've just updated a site (http://www.ci.concord.ca.us) that uses
> > JavaScript menus (from Fireworks popup feature) and has a few more
> > graphics than I've used in the past. The site loads too slowly and I'd
> > like suggestions on getting it to load more quickly. I think it's the
> > JavaScript that's the main culprit. The menus and the script that runs
> > them are being called from the pages. I noticed these scripts have been
> > cached on my computer so I'm assuming they're quicker to get to than if
> > they weren't. (I did a test without the fancy menus and the page loaded
> > pretty quickly.) Any help would be greatly appreciated!

the html and css files:
http://www.ci.concord.ca.us/index.htm               <-- 11k
http://www.ci.concord.ca.us/Templates/general.css   <-- ~1k

and for the javascript:
http://www.ci.concord.ca.us/Templates/load_menus.js <-- 25k
http://www.ci.concord.ca.us/Templates/fw_menu.js    <-- 34k


and the images:
43k
http://www.ci.concord.ca.us/graphics/imagesforpage/homepage_r2_c1.gif
 7k http://www.ci.concord.ca.us/graphics/familyfirstlogo.gif
 5k
http://www.ci.concord.ca.us/graphics/imagesforpage/homepage_r5_c1.gif
 4k http://www.ci.concord.ca.us/graphics/imagesforpage/parkinggarage.jpg
 2k http://www.ci.concord.ca.us/graphics/citylogo.gif
 1k http://www.ci.concord.ca.us/graphics/imagesforpage/submenuslice.gif
 1k http://www.ci.concord.ca.us/graphics/imagesforpage/topslice.gif
~1k http://www.ci.concord.ca.us/graphics/imagesforpage/topspaceslice.gif
~1k http://www.ci.concord.ca.us/graphics/lighton-tiny.gif
~1k http://www.ci.concord.ca.us/graphics/sunicon20px.gif
~1k http://www.ci.concord.ca.us/graphics/imagesforpage/spacer.gif

I *think* I got them all.

So for the html+css we have 11k.
for the javascript we have 59k.
and for the images a rough total of 64k. 

Combined total roughly 134k.

Add to that the execution time of all the javascript, not to mention
this 134k of stuff all has to download before the menus will be active,
and you get slow.

	- Joe <http://artlung.com/>
-- 
...................  Joe Crawford \\ Web Design & Development
.....  mailto:jcrawford at avencom.com \\ http://www.avencom.com
.... San Diego \\ CA \\ USA \\ AVENCOM: Set Your Sites Higher




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