Page size rendering in two stages

[Patrick Taylor]

I have an html index page built with tables. The page is deeper than the screen. When I open the page, the Windows vertical scrollbar goes to a certain size and stays that size while some page images download, then when the images have downloaded the scrollbar goes smaller, to its final size. Only then (after the images have downloaded) is the page rendered to its final correct size and the bottom text become visible. I would have expected the html page structure to be detected by the browser and its full size displayed (and the bottom text to have loaded in) before the images.

Could anyone comment on this? Is there maybe a problem with my server or my page, or is there another reason maybe?

Regards,

Patrick

[Alternative Future]

Hi Patrick_Taylor,

I am sure this is the norm behaviour when the page is loading, there might be a work around using the page onload event (am nto sure of any) but this also happens with my website!

-gs

[Patrick Taylor]

Thanks, but the thing is, I'm not sure if this is normal behaviour. This is the only one of my sites where I've seen this happen. Normally, the page goes to its final size before, not after, any images have downloaded.

Regards,

Patrick

[Iguana]

Have you got IMGs in the tables? It makes a difference to give all IMGs a height and width property in your HTML

[hartlandcat]

What browser is this happening in? I know that what you're experiancing always happens in Netscape and Mozilla.

[Patrick Taylor]

I do have images, and will give them a height and width, and try again. I'm using IE6. And yes, I've seen that Netscape behaves differently but in my experience even Netscape tends to size the page before every single image has been downloaded.

[hartlandcat]

Just of interest... why does this really matter?

[Patrick Taylor]

I'm not sure it does, but I suspect either something wrong with my page or with my server. Normally my pages size themselves straight off, then I wait for the images to download, and this seems to be the case with most pages I've checked recently.

Also, in the case of some php-generated pages I have on the same server, sometimes the bottom part of the page fails to load altogether, until it's refreshed.

[hartlandcat]

What you mean is that "normally in IE my pages size themselves straight off". What is happening with your pages is perfectly normal for me.

[MonkeeSage]

I just started learning PHP today (well, I guess that'd be yesterday now), but I saw some options in php.ini that may help...as I recall there were settings for max time to resolve variables, to execute functions, etc. There is also a buffering and flushing function that might help:

[php.net...]

Jordan