h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

OK, my latest commision is for a friends design studio - only got control of the domain yesterday and as it is a private sector and has a small audience I am doing a few things I wouldn't do on my day job site.

One of these is a scripted slide show - I got the script from the web (I can provide details if anyone likes), but I can't understand it - usually I can read scripts I can't write and see how they work.

I am not sure if it is pre-loading all the images - as I am on ADSL it is hard to tell - there seem to be a pause before the first image is shown and not befoe the others.

If this is the case I will have to change it, as it would mean far too much of an initial download for dialup users.

Anyway - enough chat, if anyone would like to test it, the site is at;

http://www.liliesdesignstudio.com/ follow the "gallery" link.

Any other polite comments also welcome - remember this is about 2 hours work so far.

Many thanks

CHawke

2 minutes 34 seconds for the gallery page to load all 20 pictures (according to Opera) on a dial-up connection, current speed 46667 bps

I noticed that all pictures were the same size, but I think it looks all wrong when some of the pictures have been stretched out so that the proportions are twisted

cheers, I'll have to re-do that then, look for a routine that doesn't pre-load - I also could do with OPera at home, forgot it gives better details on page size.

THe photos haven't been diwstorted at all, they have been made the same height but the ratios have remained the same - remember these are models, the skinny look is the requirement

Many thanks, although not the answer I really wanted , but do need to get it right for dial up users.

CHawke

now replaced with simpler script - one I can understand. Need to eithr loop it or say when you are at the last slide, but all works, and no preload.

Cheers

CHawke

PS If anyone wants a posh frock you know where to go now

I think Titania is right about the proportions of the pictures. Some make the models look unnaturally short and plump. When you resize the pictures you have to lock the aspect ratio, so that if you make the picture half as tall it becomes half as wide as well. With a lot of graphic programs, if you hold down the shift key while dragging the corner of the picture it locks the aspect ratio. If that doesn't fit into the box you have, you need to crop the picture.

I think it would be better to let the picture dimensions vary instead of locking them into the size you have preselected, even if it means sacrificing your web design a little. The main point is to make the clothes *in* the pictures look the best they can.

Odd - as I see them exactly as they are on my originals - I batch converted them in FireWorks to give a standard height - a process I have done loads of times.

What browser OS combo are you using?

Which images look worse? I'll post the originals as supplied on the site somewhere (with may more compression, but no sizing) for comparision.



CHawke

FYI - I've now been given a much better set of pictures - would be interested if these seem out of wack too.

They're in the outfits gallery

Cheers

CHawke

I'm not sure how google treats ".asp?nnn" as regards seeing it as a static page or not, but those galleries don't seem to work any different for me than static links to static pages, and thus you could probably replace them with standard ".htm" pages.

Apart from that, it seems fine when viewing it on win98, using mozilla over dialup.

Alas can't do, as the data for the pictures all comes from the database - whilst not showing at the moment, each shot can have a description of the specific shot.

I've found that Google indexes .asp pages with specific varibles, fine, in fact rely on Google for the internal search of another site I did. The onbly problem I have with Google is getting this site on it - all other engines have picked it up, but not yet Google"

Cheers

CHawke

getting a site recognised by google is a tricky and fast changing thing.

this is because they keep having to change the rules to cut down on cheating and cheats.

The best way seems to be to create a good site, with lots of good content, no bad keywords, which is linked to from other good sites, and has a persistant deep linking policy.

even then, it can take a while.

as to getting dynamic content from a database, the time to do that is when the data changes, not all the time, unless all the data is in a constant state of flux.

If you regenerate the page offline when something changes, and publish the modified static page, it has various advantages.

Yay! Google now has it.

I think we'll agree to disagree on the database issue. I have recently finished a major site that is the online version of a 130 page report, each paragraph is one data record and can be edited online by relatively untrained people.

It also allows the user to change the amount per page from 5 paragraphs to 25.

All of it appears to have been Googled now - as well as picked up by other search engines. The only problem is that people jump direct ointo a specific page and may not read the stuff before or after it. Log analysis shows that the majority of hits come in direct to the relevant page.

Sure beats 100MB PDF files or maintaining 200 plus static pages!



CHawke

this is what I meant by a persistant deep linking policy.

if you put pages online, and they are not found by search engines, you get very little traffic.

if on the other hand the search engines do find the site, then you will find people not only jumping into pages from the search engines, but then linking to that specific page.

the only exception to that is if you do silly tricks like expiring content after a relatively short period of time. (some bbc links expire less than 2 years from their pubishing date).

another silly trick include restructuring your site a lot, so the content remains the same, but the link becomes highly changable.