Why this is happening to me ?

[Brian Of influx media]

I’m on a cable modem with a 5 meg download. Your site did load completely in a few seconds, but I could see it loading all the slices you have on that one page… WOW.. it seems like alot. I can also see how people on slower connections will not bother with the site because of this, and they will most likely see the white spaces (which are the image slices not loading right away for the viewer) and leave.

Could you maybe combine some slices so there arent as many as you have on there?

If you want to see how long it will take to download the page, dreamweaver has an estimated download time on the bottom right of the page you are working on. It tells you the size of the page you are working on and also how long it will take to download on whatever speed you have it set at.

B

Brian Artka

https://www.influx-media.com
Digital Video/Digital Media Specialist
Video Production/Web Design

[Milind_media]

So how i can improve upon this ?

My problem is it takes extra time to load and also it shows some white patches around slices on top left , top right etc. , when i see its preview on my home Comp it works fine but when I host it and checked it on PC on IE and Mozila it shows some 4-5 white patches (i.e. slice errors) around the layout. But according to some of my friends they havent seen any white patches on their screen why so ? As i can clearly see it on my desk.

Also is there any trick that I can use for the slices so that the downloading will become faster ?

OR

Is it predictable to write “Heavy Images does take a little more time so pls. be patient” line on my splash page. ? which is @ http://www.milindonline.com/splash.gif . So user will consider some extra time.

Really friends i have taken some SERIOUS EFFORTS on this layout so i really want everything to be fine… Hope you understands my problem.

Thnx for any help..
MiLiNd
https://www.milindonline.com/tester/graphics.html

[Gord]

Hello MiLInd.
It is a bit slow to download on a 56k modem.
First thing I’d try is to remove the pattern graphic on the left/right side & replace it with a small tile ( currently 25KB & 14KB ) as a background (The same graphic, just a tiny “tiled” version).
The bulk of your site (KB) is contained within the 14 central web page images (104KB). All you can do is either tweak the quality down or accept the slower download time.(Are your clients likely to be on dial up modems? Are your clients likely to find you via a search or are they specifically looking for you?) .
As for the white spaces.If you look at a vertical line down the center of the image (where shree is) the graphics fit the whole page.To the left and right sides there are some white spaces , and spaces at the top and bottom. This suggests to me that the vertical height of the slices do not add up to the middle section total, causing the browser to ‘guess’ where you want the graphic & creating 1 or 2px whitespaces.

Gord

[Milind_media]

So how could i get rid of this Gord ?

[Gord]

Hello MiLiNd.
I had a quick look at your layout & I can’t remember seeing so many random? slices in an image.
It’s too complex for me to try & work out why the browser creates a few gaps.
Personally i’d slice it up again from scratch. These are the rules I follow.
1/ Keep it simple enough to be able to manage any browser problems.ie: if ,when troubleshooting ,you add a border tag to your table cells,will you be able to work out whats going wrong?
2/ Before you start slicing, look for obvious areas of duplication.
For example, the magnifying glass and ‘view’ comment at the bottom of each web sample page is the same graphic. So providing you slice this area consistently each time,you can repeat the same graphic 14 times rather than having 14 graphics (1x2KB rather than 14X2KB).
The ‘featured links’ menu is another area.
3/ Look for logical slice borders.Consider the fact that the more colours in an individual gif, the larger the gif will be. So try not to split say a blue part across several slices.
4/ Like I said before, use a small ’tile’ gif to create the external pattern.

Hope this helps a bit.

Gord

[Gord]

Afterthought.
This may or may not be the best way to do things.
But for a complex graphic, I get my finished image in Photoshop & drag guides in to work out my slicing.It has to be pixel perfect.Once done I write in all the ()widths across the top & ()heights down the left.
Works for me.
Gord

[Milind_media]

ok
how abt. this one https://www.milindonline.com/layout.jpg fo ra layout.

[Gord]

Whats your point ??

[Milind_media]

Hi,

just want to compare https://www.milindonline.com/layout.jpg with the old one i.e. http://www.milindonine.com/tester/graphics.html in terms of usablity and colors ? which one is preferable ?

Thnx.

[Gord]

Hi

The new version is not as good.In my opinion the blue areas in the original work well with the image, the web pages & the blue text links.
I didn’t mean to suggest that you take colours out , just that you take a bit of care when slicing to minimise the file size.
My best advice to get rid of the white spaces and reduce the file size is still to re-slice the original, look for areas of duplication & use a single gif for these, tile the outside pattern and try tweaking the quality of the web page samples.

Also, if you change the central web page samples to .jpeg rather than .gif , you can sigificantly reduce the size without loosing toooo much quality. They look ok to me at about 1/3 file size (10KB rather than 30KB).Thats a huge saving per image.

Gord