Hey, finally something *I* can offer good advice on!
As a general rule of thumb, try to keep the total size of a Web page under
100Kb - that means the page itself plus all images on it. There's several
things you can do to keep your page size down:
* First, and most obviously, don't put too many images on one page
* Use thumbnails of images - small (maximum of say 200 x 200 pixel)
versions
of the picture that link to the larger picture. Make sure you actually
create a smaller version of the picture file - you can use the IMG tag to
shrink an image, but that loads the whole big image then shrinks it, so you
don't get any benefit. You can download freeware and shareware to do this
from sites like http://www.download.com; one very popular program (for the
Windows platform) is Paintshop Pro.
* Use the ALT tag in your image tag. This shows a short description of
what
the image actually contains that will often display before the image itself.
Some people turn off the option to load images automatically, and this will
help them to figure out which pictures are interesting to them.
* When you're providing a link to a large picture or to a page with lots
of
images on it, mention in the link that it's a big picture, preferably with
the actual size. That way, if the user does indeed want to load the page or
picture, he can click the link, go get a beer, drink it, change the oil,
watch the seasons turn, then come back and look at the page.
So, here's how your HTML might look if you were to follow all of these
guidelines: <A HREF="./images/really_big_picture.jpg"><IMG
SRC="./images/thumbnail_of_big_picture.jpg" ALT="Picture of my car (200
KB)">My beautiful MG (200 KB)</A>.
Probably old hat to a lot of you, but maybe this helps. If anyone's got
questions about HTML'ing, just send me some mail.
Ob-LBC: It's springtime in Holland! The mechanics are back from holiday, so
I can finally get the coolant leak fixed, valves adjusted, and hopefully the
horrible clutch grinding too! It's just too bad I'm too busy travelling to
drive...
- Derek, 78 MGB
___
> Steve, I would agree with Eric's comments. I recently put together a web
> page for my family, and put about 3 mb worth of pix on one page, which
> was not a problem for me since I am on cable - but my AOL-using siblings
> moaned about the load time!!!!
> Car looks great, love the ski picture! That's classic!
> Dan D
> Dayton, NJ
> 76 MGB (posting pictures of my MG later this week)
The Big Picture BV
Internet Strategists
Amsterdam Science Park / Kruislaan 402 / 1098 SM Amsterdam
(p) +31 (629) 065 528 / (f) +31 (20) 882 4476 / (fun)
http://www.bones.org/dersk
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