CSS - images set to "invisible" - do they still download?

[RobM]

Greetings

Looking at adding appropriate handheld access to a web application. As its
JSP based, considering a combination of the use of "media" stylesheets
("screen" for normal, and "handheld" for ... handheld) and dynamic JSP
(after testing useragent) to cut down the size of what's presented.

Question: does anyone know that when I have images (all or some) in the
style sheet set to display: none; the (handheld) browser will still download
them but not display? (i.e. still bigger bandwidth). I would assume they're
not downloaded? If they are, well control that dynamically from the server

Thanks all
Cheers
Rob

 

[Spartanicus]

Question: does anyone know that when I have images (all or some) in the
style sheet set to display: none; the (handheld) browser will still download
them but not display?

Depends on the UA, some do, some don't.

 

[Toby Inkster]

Question: does anyone know that when I have images (all or some) in the
style sheet set to display: none; the (handheld) browser will still download
them but not display? (i.e. still bigger bandwidth). I would assume they're
not downloaded? If they are, well control that dynamically from the
server

It very much depends on the browser. Some are smart enough to download
only the images they need. Others seem to simply download all images
linked to by the CSS, assuming they'll be needed at some point in time.

This is something to bare in mind if you use a large background image on
just one or two pages.

BODY.special { background-image: url("large-bg.png"); }

in your stylesheet may download the large-bg.png image even on non-special
pages.

 

[RobM]

Greetings

Question: does anyone know that when I have images (all or some) in the
style sheet set to display: none; the (handheld) browser will still download
them but not display? (i.e. still bigger bandwidth). I would assume they're
not downloaded? If they are, well control that dynamically from the server

Thanks all
Cheers
Rob

Thanks for the replies, guys. Seems the way to go is (if yer using
dynamics.. asp/jsp) do it at the source for the big stuff (graphics), media
css for widths and placements.

Cheers
Rob