compatibility of...

[wiser3]

This page

http://www.slidesystems.com/preload.html

acts as a preloader by showing all the images as being 1 pixel by 1 pixel then forwarding you to the proper page. Once on the proper page all the images are cached and the page quickly comes up.

I'm wondering about the use of the meta redirect tag in the body. Does anyone know what the compatibility of using that tag in the body is?

I hate the long wait the site puts you through before you get to the proper page but that a different issue.

 

[manarth]

Most people use JavaScript to preload images (although this is more common to preload rollover effects).

A quick google will come up with dozens of JavaScript examples.

<marc> i wonder what will happen if i press this...[ul][li]please tell us if our suggestion has helped[/li][li]need some help? faq581-3339[/li][/ul]

 

[ChrisHunt]

I hate the long wait the site puts you through before you get to the proper page but that a different issue.

I think that wait illustrates the pointlessness of this technique, at least in the way you're using it.

Consider the situation without a preload. The person goes to your page, the text information is quickly rendered, and the visitor can read it while (s)he's waiting for the (mainly decorative) images to load.

Noe look at the preload. The visitor has a more-or-less blank page to look at while you load those images. You just have to hope that they have the patience to wait, rather than hit their back button and go somewhere less irritating instead. Incidentally, there still seems to be a noticable delay in picking up all the images when loading the second page on a dial-up modem, so it may not even be working. It's not helping your search engine optimisation much either.

The only time you might sensibly want to pre-load like this is on a normal content page, when you expect people to be going to other pages with those images on. For example, since you have a (sigh) splash page, you could preload those images on it somewhere unobtrusive so that when people click to enter some or all of them are preloaded. Personally I wouldn't bother pre-loading at all.

-- Chris Hunt

http://www.mcgonagall-online.org.uk

http://www.napitalia.org.uk

http://www.leicesteryha.org.uk

 

[wiser3]

I totally agree with you Chris. That site was done by someone else. Now i'll be doing some work on it, and one of the things i want to change is the preloader situation.