Page could take a long time to load...

Keeping the customers attention

[giggle]

Hi

A new website that I'm getting ready to launch may take a long time to load certain pages. Does anyone have any code pointers to getting something on the screen quick with a kind of "Please wait..." message?

[mm1220]

Are the slow pages loading java applets or flash or what?

[Nutter]

I've done this with big graphics. Make a small graphic of the same dimensions, load it in the <img /> tag and then replace it with JS at the end of the file. You could use a 2 color GIF version of a big JPG or even a simple "Please wait" image. You can also just leave out the graphic in the tag and replace it later. If you go that way, be sure to include the height and width so it doesn't make the page jump when the picture does load.

- Ryan

[giggle]

The page loads and does a lot of SQL access and calculating rates then building the page with pictures of the various things that we're selling - could be 30 per page (don't want to split the page into pages). There's a lot of code that pushes the page size to about 70k. Think that I want a sexy "please wait" with a progress bar or something like that. Any ideas?

[TheDoctor]

Have you tried putting text and fast-loading stuff at the top of the page so that the user has something relevant to read whilst s/he is waiting. Something a lot more useful than a progress bar?

Could this be the first page of your site? If so, it may be that the visitor wants to go on somewhere else. Make sure that links to other pages appear before you start loading pictures.

Also consider a redesign so that you generate lots of links (with descriptions) to individual pages of each product. You then display the picture on the individual page. This way, the visitor only gets to wait for the picture of the product they're interested in to load. A couple of pictures of your most popular products may be enough for the main page.

Remember the Doctor's rule: lots of SQL lookups while simultaneously displaying lots of images can cause unnecessary fluctuations in the space-time continuum and may lose you your prime-time slot on television. ;)

[TheDoctor]

Additional: have a read of tedster's advice in this thread [webmasterworld.com]

[giggle]

VERY good point TheDoctor. Going to have to rethink some things. Lots of SQL and quite a few images. Made me think that I sould review my database structure to possibly reduce the amount of SQL access. Cheers.