Best way to load 40 images or so.

October 30th, 2009, 11:50 am

Hello all!


What is the best way to have a "journal type" page load that has near 50 pictures that are 800x600 on a static html page?

Currently, I leave the picture as the source and the link *lightboxed*, so it loads once instead of waiting for a thumbnail, then the full to load. This also reduces the need to create two sets of images. I am about to create a 2nd server named img. that will serve all the content images out (as test show two host source increase speed greatly), while preserving the css and the text on the regular host.


Is thumbnails the only way to go to load faster? Some sites have thumbnails, then a javascript loader that loads the full images anyways, so you load more data than if you just had the base image resized. Seems odd to me, unless it is after Dom is finished..?

[joebert]

October 30th, 2009, 12:06 pm

It all comes down to how many of the images visitors are looking at fullsize versions of and how large your thumbnails are compared to your fullsize images.

You can generate thumbnails and upload them, or you can use something to generate static thumbnails on the fly like I do.

I suggest starting out with thumbnails, then looking at the statistics a month or so down the road to see if it would make sense to just use the fullsize images. If visitors are only looking at the fullsize version for 50% of images, it wouldn't make sense to switch away from thumbnails if your thumbnails are generally 50% of the size of their fullsize counterparts.

In my case, after gathering statistics for a year, I can still say that for me it makes more sense to use thumbnail images than it does to just use the fullsize images.