Re: Ankida

by "Eastwind Design" <ewdg(at)ewdg.com>
Date:	Mon, 12 Jul 1999 14:16:07 -0700
To:	<hwg-critique(at)hwg.org>
References:	pangaealink
	todo: View Thread, Original
It depends on how many pictures we're talking about.  The 'Where's Waldo'
site (www.findwaldo.com) uses something pretty original, which I've seen
copied at times, and that is a preload page.  The images load up as 10 x 10
images.  You also might want to use frames, wherein one frame is invisible
(if horizontal, no height, then no margin, spacing, or border).  In this
"zero frame", as it is called, throw in image tags where the dimensions of
each image are 0 x 0.  This will, ofcourse, slow down the loading of the
site, and won't show individual page names in the address bar, but will
preload the images.

Another method would be to use JavaScript to preload images that do not
display on the page using this code:

Within the document head:

<script language="JavaScript">
<!--
function PreloadImages() {
if (document.images) {
var imgFiles = PreloadImages.arguments;
var preloadArray = new Array();
for (var i=0; i<imgFiles.length; i++) {
preloadArray[i] = new Image;
preloadArray[i].src = imgFiles[i];
}
}
}

Outside the head, preferable immediately after the <body> tag put:

<script language='JavaScript'>
<!--
PreloadImages('filename.jpg');
PreloadImages('filename2.jpg');
PreloadImages('filename3.jpg');
PreloadImages('filename4.jpg');
-->
</script>

Where "filename.jpg" is the name of your image.  This will preload the
images and you won't need to put them anywhere in your document.  However,
if a user clicks out of this page before it finishes loading completely,
then they won't be preloaded by the time they get to the page.  Using the
other bizarre method, the images will constantly load until they are
finished.

- Steve

> I have a question myself on this Ankida site - Steve?
>
> I'm helping a friend with a real estate site - very image heavy - and I'm
> placing the graphics on the 'following' page (there is a definite order,
> one hopes) on the previous page as 1x1 jpgs or gifs to preload into the
> viewer's cache...since I can no more read javascript than greek at the
> moment, would Grace's page accommodate this to speed up the graphic flow
> (not the page turnover rate)???
>
> If so Grace, what I'm doing would translate on your page as:
>
> <P><IMG SRC="images/swim_c.jpg" WIDTH=600 HEIGHT=450 X-CLARIS ETC.>
> </TD></TR><TR><TD><IMG SRC="images/swim_d.jpg" WIDTH=1
> HEIGHT=1></TD></TR></TABLE></BODY></HTML>
>
> Linda Goin
> hanging out at the Long Beach, MS library
HTML: hwg-critique mailing list archives, maintained by Webmaster @ IWA