[thelist] html load time

aardvark roselli at earthlink.net
Mon Oct 1 09:35:59 CDT 2001


> From: "Jeana Clark" <jmclark at multiservice.com>
> 
> I'm in the process of doing some reasearch (and convincing) of ways we
> can optimize our messy html so it will download faster (whether it be
> perceived or actual).. and I stumbled across this at the HTML Writers
> Guild: http://www.hwg.org/opcenter/newsletters/tips/aug00a.html

ahh, you want HTML that's leaner and cleaner... the double benefit 
being that it comes through the pipe faster, and doesn't take as 
long to render... that's easy enough...

> But I wonder about one persons comment:
> "Have all images load from the same directory."

egad... no, i've never seen an increase in that, and unless someone 
can tell me otherwise, i don't see how it would matter... each 
image call is a separate, anonyomous connection, how would it's 
location in the file system matter?  if anything, it's location on the 
physical disk is probably more important...

look, i appreciate what people are trying to do in the HWG, but any 
organization that doesn't require some level of knowledge or skill to 
join isn't going to fly for me as a resource... especially given some 
of the stuff i've seen come out of them before...

> Does this really affect download time?  Usually when I design a site,
> I will put appropriate graphics in appropriate subfolders.. but have
> the images that are repeated throughout the site in the same folder at
> the root of the site...

well, if that means you may call the image from different locations, 
you're calling the image twice... that's bad...

> Just wondering if anyone has the heads up on this.

yeah, there are ways to speed up download *and* rendering time....

- re-use images...
- minimize use of images...
- optimize the hell out of images...
- clean your HTML so it's simple and valid...
- simplify your HTML with CSS for style whenever possible (taking 
care to ensure it's right for your audience)...
- do use width and height, however, if you validate your code, you'll 
get told that...
- use image formats appropriate for the image (jpg isn't always the 
best)...
- set a maximum page size (including images), like 24k, and stick 
to it...
- if you use tables, stack them, so the header and footer, for 
example, and unique tables... it allows parts of the page to render 
before other parts...

all those tips on that page about splitting up the page into sliced, 
tabled images are hooey... yeah, the user may see parts of an 
image a tenth of a second faster, but the tradeoff is longer 
download time overall (to get each image, as well as a fatter HTML 
page) as well as more complex HTML to render...

don't be that girl...





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