[thelist] Netscape 4.7 table drawing

Wed Sep 5 04:38:15 CDT 2001

[ 05.09.2001 - 11:12 Uhr ]
Steve Cook was writing:

> Hi folks!
> 
> I've just been working on a page of our site that has, if I'm honest, way
> too many embedded tables for its own good. However it's the design we're
> using at the moment, so it's gonna have to stay that way for the moment! The
> problem is that in Netscape 4.7 several of our pages take ages to draw. I'm
> getting times of up to 20, 30 seconds for a single page.
> 
> What tips do folks have for reducing drawing times for Netscape 4? I've
> checked that all images have width and height, but apart from that I'm open
> to any suggestions (apart from reducing the number of tables which, sadly,
> is not an option at present.
> 
> Cheers!
> 
> ..steve

Hello, Steve

Since reducing, or splitting, tables isn't an option, most of your chances are gone...
To speed up things a bit, you could do the following:

- Define the table- and cell-width, if possible (this can have dramatic effects)
- As you already did, always provide <img width="" height="">
- 'Legalize' your code

- If there are _many_, or _big_ images, use a spacer.gif for your
images, then load the 'originals' with <body onLoad="loadimg()"> (Yes
this is ugly, but speeds up the rendering process. Images are
positioned, and the browser hasn't got to wait ages until the last image
has come through...)

- find a way to persuade the appropriate people (you, your boss, ...) to
reconsider the pages structure...

hth

david