Corners of pictures loading

[PeloGFX]

I've been noticing that on some sites with layouts made mostly of pictures that the corners or pictures load last (if the corners are rounded). An example is this site. What I don't understand is WHY do they make a seperate picture for each corner or WHY the browser makes it load like that, which ever the case is.
I'm using IE6, 1204x768. ~PeloGFX

 

[SashiRaveendran]

Browser will fire off threads to go and retrieve the images that make up the page, this is done whenever the browser reads an image tag. The image that you see first is just the image that gets to the browser first, these are usually the smallest filesize images. The images do not appear on the page in a predetermined order or anything like that. It is mainly down to image filesize and image location (may be a different domain).

 

[tsdragon]

Usually this is the case when the corners are rounded, and therefore have to be images, since plain html does not do rounded corners. Frequently what you're seeing is not a main image and the corners, but a table or other area with a colored background (which of course would display quickly) and then the rounded corners, which ARE images (and thus have to be fetched separately, and therefore appear later). This allows you to have a colored text area with rounded corners. This is a very common technique. Also the main image is sometimes a VERY small single-color background image that is resized via HTML and the browser to fill the desired space. Since it is so small, it frequently loads more quickly than the corner images. Tracy Dryden
tracy@bydisn.com

http://www.bydisn.com

Meddle not in the affairs of dragons,
For you are crunchy, and good with mustard.