Break This! -- Beta Test

[Forum Boss]

Folks,

I'm working on some new formatting that would let us show bigger pictures of rifles and gear in the sponsor sections. I think this would be especially effective for show-casing complete rifles and new actions.

Link: http://www.6mmbr.com/bannertest.html

Please click on this page, and then hit the "refresh" button a few more times. Let me know if you experience any problem.

There should be a big horizontal unit at the top, one of three vertical graphics on the right, and a normal banner at the bottom.

Thanks!

 

[rstreich]

Paul, I took a quick look at the HTML structure of your page and you're five and six levels deep in tables before you get to any text. For a page like this with a fairly simple structure, you shouldn't be more than two or three deep.

It's the tables that are making the pages so slow to render, especially with the whole page enclosed in a table. This forces the browser to scan the entire page,usually multiple times) before it starts rendering anything.

Other than that, it seemed to work fine.

 

[Forum Boss]

Robert,

Thanks for the feedback. The whole site is currently built on 3rd-party templates. All those tables are actually for the nav buttons on the left. Unfortunately, that's the template structure I'm stuck with 'til we get into a major re-design,with pages hosted on a separate server with a more efficient nav button structure). For better or worse, those tables are there,and have been on the start) for every page on the site. There's only one level of tables on the white space that's displaying. It's the server for the big banners that appears to be the slow-down.

The page will actually display pretty fast, tables and all, without the banners.

See: http://www.6mmbr.com/page/page/2913564.htm

 

[USAPatriot]

The first one seems to work ok but if you're looking for larger pictures you'll need to lose the menu in the left column. The banners loaded up new vendors each time so that's working though yes, there was some small delay in getting them up. Less than a second on my cable connection. The second link I only got the menu on the left and a blank section that said HTML TEST in the upper left corner. -Rod-

 

[Forum Boss]

USA,

Thanks for your comment. Yes, the second link is just to a blank page. I was showing Rob how a page loads without the banners. He was concerned about the coding for the navigation.

The site is currently about 820 pixels wide. We are working on a newer version for the feature articles that will be 1000 pixels wide. I don't want to go much bigger than that because 1024,wide) is the most common monitor resolution.

We plan to keep the left nav, but simplify it somewhat. Over the last two years people have said they like having the site features one click away, always in the same spot on the left.

 

[USAPatriot]

Well, the entire thing is centered on my screen so you could gain 20-25% more screen just by shifting it all to the left. The menu is definitely a keeper. -Rod-

 

[rstreich]

Paul, maybe this is more detail than you want to get into here, but I wanted to pass along a few thoughts. You might not be able to do anything since these templates seem to have you a bit trapped, but....

The outer table seems to have a fixed width since it doesn't size with the browser window, however the inner tables seem to have a relative width. It seems like you could probably use fixed-width table cells, especially for things like the left-hand menu. That should speed up rendering a bit anyway.

Also, without looking at code,too late for that tonight), it seems like your image tags don't specify the size of the image. This is based only on the fact that the page doesn't seem to start rendering until the images have started to load. If this is true, then that's why the banners slow down the whole page view. If the browser had the image dimensions, it could proceed with laying out the table before the image had started to load. With the tables, you'll still have to wait for the browser to lay out the entire page before any of it will render, but you at least wouldn't be held up by the banner server.

robert

p.s. If this is more than you want, just tell me to shut up anytime.

 

[DesertLefty]

Paul,

It worked OK for me,using IE 7), though I found the larger ads to be a bit overpowering. Hope this won't be a general change to the site's look and feel.

Richard.

 

[harvey13118]

I can't help with the technical stuff. But I'm on dial up at home, my only other option it appears for the next several years is Satellite, as I suspect many others are. Some of this stuff is waaaaayyyy to intense for a 28.8 - 32.0 KBS connection.

Just my $.02 worth.

Harvey

 

[Forum Boss]

Harvey,

Your "two cents" are important. This is why we are testing. On the one hand we have the DSL/Cable connected guys who want bigger pictures. On the other hand I NEED to hear from guys in your position so we can keep the page-loads reasonable.

I do need to increase the size of sponsorship units so our vendors can provide larger, clearer pictures of their products.

 

[Forum Boss]

Paul,

It worked OK for me,using IE 7), though I found the larger ads to be a bit overpowering. Hope this won't be a general change to the site's look and feel.

Richard.

Richard,

Thanks for the feedback. The big ads wouldn't appear everywhere--mainly on the long features, and perhaps the gear review sections. But keep in mind, that to be viable, a print magazine needs to devote 30+% of the available space to adverts. A very successful print mag runs about 40% ads. On a large Gun of the week story,4000 words), we currently dedicate about 1-2% of the space for ads, in two small banners.,1" out of 50-100 vertical inches of "story").

Compared to a print magazine, we don't have the expenses of printing and shipping--but we also give away the content for free!