C
Chris Tomlinson
It's what we call a 'deterrent'. They are also digitally watermarked.
Thanks for your comments.
It's what we call a 'deterrent'. They are also digitally watermarked.
Thanks for your comments.
J
jojo
Chris said:
I found 6 externel JavaScript on this Site: 3 from maps.google.com, 2
from www.assoc-amazon.co.uk and one from pageat2.googlesyndication.com.
When I scrolled or clicked the site before all your multimedia was
loaded my browser crashed (only Firefox, works on IE). So actually I was
brought nowhere...
And now it is 3D? I personally think that websites with sound are one of
the most cruel crimes you can commit. Not only the loading-time, it's
just annoying. And imagine someone listens to music while visiting your
site...
Your site still needs a lot of time to load with broadband connections.
(especially the sound)
I just have to switch off JavaScript and - bingo, i can right click on
the images...
And not this one, too.
Oh, there is one thing that you learn very quickly: Do not visit this
site again!
BTW: have you ever tried to validate the site?
http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http://www.superhighstreet.com/George-Street-Richmond/
Cruel! The most serious mistakes:
-No doctype
-2 <html>-Tags
-Many attributes with no values (for example <meta name="..." content>
-Attributes used on tags which doesn't have them (for example <iframe
.... target="_blank" >
-Attributes used which doesn't even exist
I wonder what program creates such wasted code... Even FrontPage can do
it better I think... Or was it FrontPage?
J
jojo
0,0%? You do not really believe that'S true, do you?Chris said:
And for "some reason"? I can tell you a few (and I'm sure there are much
more which just don't come to my mind in this moment):
-Security
-Popup-windows
-Disabled context menus
-...
C
Chris Tomlinson
jojo said:
We're not sure what you're saying there -- is there some reason we shouldn't
be using JS at all?
That is worrying as we haven't managed to crash FF once. Is this
repeatable?
There is a balance here. Some people like the initial way the site brings
you to the street, visually and audibly. Take away the audio and you lose
one of the senses that you couldn't avoid on the street. Do you wear
earplugs when shopping?
The aim of the site is to bring a realistic shopping experience, without the
crowds, traffic, bad weather, etc. We can't stress that enough. To then
say we should take away the things that make the site unique, is to say the
site shouldn't exist. It's actually quite a fun idea yet everyone on this
group seems to be struggling to use it, yet my father who is 75 had no
trouble at all on 4 year old computer with a 0.5 Gb broadband connection.
What we're saying is, if you're a programmer of course you are going to
attack anything you wouldn't have done, but the vast majority of the
population are not web programmers, and for them the site therefore just
does what it says on the tin.
The sound portion is 100k. Again, the site is designed for/recommended for
broadband connections.
It is just a deterrant. The images are digitally watermarked.
Thanks for your constructive feedback.
Just out of interest -- how would you achieve the end goal (a good quality
scrolling interactive streetscape with a realistic high street 'feel')? You
guys are very quick to criticise, but we do not see any better ideas coming
from the same direction as the negative comments.
The site is currently in beta, and has yet to be launched. This is made
clear on the top of the page. We doubt any non-programmers are going to
validate the site at this stage.
You are confusing that with the SSI top shared border which has its own tag.
Beta, will look into it thanks.
Again thanks.
FrontPage was a great help with the graphic imagemaps over the streetscapes,
yes.
J
jojo
Yes, there is... About 15% of all users have swithed it off (I know youChris said:
do not belive this...). But this was not my point. I just wanted to
disprove your statement:
Yes, crashes every time I scroll to the bottom of the page before the
bottom is loaded... but it may be an exception. You have to ask other
people to test it, too.
No, but my computer is connected with my stereo... and I always listen
to music when I surf the Internet.
I have broadband (DSL 2000).
So why don't you just leave out the JS than? The alert box is really
annoying!
Thanks for your constructive feedback.
Just out of interest -- how would you achieve the end goal (a good quality
scrolling interactive streetscape with a realistic high street 'feel')? You
guys are very quick to criticise, but we do not see any better ideas coming
from the same direction as the negative comments.
I've got a suggestion: leave out all your multimedia-stuff and
concentrate on the thing you actual want: shopping.
I do not see the need of a virtual street to go shopping... If I want to
go to a shopping-street I can walk or go by bus/car. And if I want do
online shopping I do not need any street...
No, but browsers have to view it... perhaps this is the reason why
Firefox crashes?
<img border="0" id="img4" src="..." height="26" width="160" alt="...â„¢"
title="..." *fp-style="..."* *fp-title="..."* title="..." ... alt="...">
Just one example. BTW: the alt-attribute is double.
Should have guessed that... Couldn't you use a better software? What
about Dreamweaver, for example? Doesn't generate that much rubbish...
C
Chris Tomlinson
PS: Oh dear, we just realised that if we put the images into JS as per your
demo page, they probably won't appear in WYSIWYG view in web page editors,
correct? Unfortunately these are essential tools due to the imagemaps we
need to draw around all the doors and shop signs, so the JPGs must be
visible in programs such as FrontPage, Dreamweaver, etc. Do you have any
other ideas to control the loading of slices?
demo page, they probably won't appear in WYSIWYG view in web page editors,
correct? Unfortunately these are essential tools due to the imagemaps we
need to draw around all the doors and shop signs, so the JPGs must be
visible in programs such as FrontPage, Dreamweaver, etc. Do you have any
other ideas to control the loading of slices?
M
Mark Parnell
Deciding to do something for the good of humanity, Chris Tomlinson
Sounds like it could potentially be one of the few decent uses for
Flash.
Sounds like it could potentially be one of the few decent uses for
Flash.
J
Jonathan N. Little
jojo said:
We have another Luigi here, asks questions but really does not want any
answers. Screw the 1% 15% JavaScript enabled debate, what percentage of
people do you think have access to broadband? 2-3MB pages are just way
too much and are not *cutting-edge* web design but it is just ... (well
I'll be kind) misguided and naive. If you want to produce an interactive
multimedia show then send me a CD not a link on a webpage. I build
commerce sites and yes folks like them to be visually attractive, but
what most people want when they shop online is convenience. Simple,
clear and fast otherwise they'd hop in the car and go shopping.
Did you ever consider that the person may be using a public computer? I
manage computers at our county libraries, noise can be an issue.
No it is an annoyance. "Digitally watermarked" really means nothing to
the pilferer unless they have the Digimarc plugin and professional
graphic software. If you think the watermark is going to be a deterrent
better think again. As an artist I am will aware if copyright and
images and other than publishing your copyright statement the only way
to real way to protect your images is don't publish them on the web. Oh,
you may have found a third, make them so frigging big that the potential
pilferer gives up and leaves your site before the images are even
download to their cache!
M
mbstevens
Simulations are great on networks and machines that are
capable of delivering such an experience. The internet is not.
The thing you have to be realistic about is what is actually possible to
deliver to the visitors who are coming to your site through varied
browsers and devices.
So package it as a game and provide a download link to it on your
site.
My Dad liked it!
Now there's an endorsement that convinces.
V
Vincent van Beveren
You could maybe use the NOSCRIPT tag for that?
<NOSCRIPT>
.. plain and simple HTML with maps ...
</NOSCRIPT>
<SCRIPT>
.. dynamic loading of images ...
</SCRIPT>
Most WYSIWYG editors read the NOSCRIPT and skip the SCRIPT tags. Most
browsers skip the NOSCRIPT and execute the SCRIPT in the script tags.
<NOSCRIPT>
.. plain and simple HTML with maps ...
</NOSCRIPT>
<SCRIPT>
.. dynamic loading of images ...
</SCRIPT>
Most WYSIWYG editors read the NOSCRIPT and skip the SCRIPT tags. Most
browsers skip the NOSCRIPT and execute the SCRIPT in the script tags.
N
Neredbojias
Here is part of the actual code where I do just that:
function gradel(n) {
if (document.images[n].complete) {
grado(n,0);
} else {
setTimeout("gradel(" + n + ");",200);
}
}
The key, of course, is the "document.images[x].complete" method. You
should be able to figure out how to make a progression from this to suit
your needs.
J
joboils
The more experienced may well "have at" the following, but -
if you are downloading the entire image in a one-er, and if people are
going to have to scroll *anyway*, why not put the downloaded image in
a <table width="10000" (or whatever size)> ?
(BTW, I didn't like the thick, kiddie-appearance of the borders.)
B
Brian Cryer
Chris Tomlinson said:Hi Brian, yes that's right -- in fact that *is* what you were looking at,
but we did it so cunningly you couldn't tell.
the divs to load in the right order.
Are you sure? because I downloaded the "highstreet" as a single image.
Agreed. Personally I don't like scrolling - but that's just my preference.
If you want to keep the scroll then consider modifying the site so it isn't
a fixed width. The monitor I'm using at the moment runs at 1600 pixels wide,
so whilst I would still need to scroll, it would help if I didn't have a
white border down the left and right hand sides. No, don't design for a
larger width, just allow your page to adjust to the browser width. (By the
way, I don't normally run my browser window full screen, and at my preferred
size I have a horizontal scroll bar just to see the rest of your page.)
Something else that might help (with loading times at least) would be to
reduce the size (height and width) of the image.
Broadband is only getting more common.
They already use progressive which looks very good in Firefox, but we
agree IE doesn't take advantage
Can we ask your connection speed? How long did it take to load roughly?
Connection speed here is 512kbps, which is shared amongst the office (12 of
us). Clearing my browser cache and reloading, I think it was about 12seconds
to load everything, although the outline of the site came up much sooner
than that.
The disadvantage of a table (in IE at least) is that IE won't display
anything (of the table) until it has finished reading/downloading all the
html for the table. This means that if the entire page were contained within
a table then IE won't render anything until it has read to the end of the
file. (This doesn't mean it needs to have downloaded the images, just the
HTML.) I take my original comment back, because I see now that you do indeed
have three separate tables and I had originally thought you had just one.
Leave it for now, and ignore my comment.
B
Brian Cryer
Chris Tomlinson said:
Two ideas:
1. go with Vincent's suggestion.
2. keep the images in (so you see them in your editor) but have some
javascript which runs on page start up which resets each of the images to
blank before explicitly loading each one. Sounds daft I know, but it means
that the visitor won't have to wait for all the images to load and you can
then control the load order AND it means that a visitor without JavaScript
enabled will still see the images. (Is that clear?) You may have to play
with it to see how practical this is.
C
Chris Tomlinson
Out of 1,545 unique visitors to our site so far, 99.45% of them have JS
enabled. On a personal note I know dozens of users with Internet access,
and 0% have it disabled. Where did you find this statistic of 15%?
Thanks for the info - much appreciated. We are launching a new FF/Safari
version shortly which may solve this.
Thanks, we appreciate this. Did you find the street noise very loud? It
plays at 25% the volume of normal sounds and is quite soft background noise.
Okay, can you qualify "a lot of time to load" in seconds please. Our
research shows users will be prepared to wait no longer than 15 seconds for
a page to access. We time our page at 5 seconds for 2Gb.
Why do you feel the need to right-click the imagery? This will help us
understand whether we should remove this added deterrant and copyright
notice. It also serves as a reminder of how to use the street for anyone
confused enough to right-click.
Please appreciate this site is not aimed at the sort of users who are on
this newsgroup. It is aimed at people who do not like Internet shopping and
prefer high street shopping. Sure, they could drive into Oxford Street, but
could you get a bus to 5th Avenue when it goes online? And those who could
visit Portobello Road, could they do it without a single other person there?
We have removed all the traffic, crowds, rain. This is a unique high street
experience aimed at people who haven't wanted to shop online until now.
Hope you understand we can't please all the people all the time
Thanks, we will validate it again before we come out of beta.
Thanks. SSI loads 3 pages, top.htm (header) and index.shtml (body) and
bottom.htm (footer). Are you saying we should remove <html... from the body
and footer documents, so they will have no HTML tag?
Also which doctype would you recommend as a generic safe bet to try first?
We tried a common one but it added extra line spaces through the document
and made the Wingdings into normal text.
Thanks, we're looking into that.
Appreciate your feedback, cheers.
C
Chris Tomlinson
The site is currently in beta and the entire reason we started this thread
was to learn ways to make the page loading more convenient, so we don't
really understand your comments that we do not want answers.
Obviously we do not want answers that say 'don't build this web page' or
'don't make it this way'. That is just negative. We are still refining the
page loading to speed it up a lot.
But we don't accept that waiting a minute for a page to load would be
quicker for people than getting in the car and driving into town, parking,
maybe getting out the umbrella, pushing through crowds, carrying heavy bags,
etc. We hope you appreciate our point. But we agree, we need to make the
page loading better and more acceptable to the user, which is the entire
reason for our question.
Vincent and Brian gave us very nice answers to the actual question, which we
are currently researching. Sorry to disappoint you about this Luigi fellow!
You have speakers on the library computer? Strange thing to do. But yes,
obviously we considered many factors which is why we made it 25% as quiet as
normal sounds, and put a clear 'sound off' speaker button right there on the
page.
Thanks for your feedback. Again, the subject of this thread should make it
clear to you we agree. This site is pre-launch and we are here to refine
that. It is great that Brian and Vincent were willing to help us with
answers.
--
Thanks,
Me
Try Google Quik-e-searchT at www.Superhighstreet.com/home
....Finds anything or they buy it for you!
C
Chris Tomlinson
All machines we have tested it on (over 20 including Safari, Opera, and the
slowest broadband) were very capable and the street worked without issue.
But we agree and want to make it faster, hence the subject of this thread.
The site is only designed for broadband PCs (not PDAs etc.) and we are very
realistic about that.
An interesting idea but when we evaluated this, the time taken to download
and install it was far greater than the time taken to load it up in a web
page.
Sorry to have confused you, I am not saying my Dad liked it, I was
responding to the snipped text where the user said he would need an
afternoon to understand how to use the street. Our response was that a
75-year old gentleman learned how to use it in about 10 seconds.
Anyway, we are not here to disagree, if you take a look at the subject of
this thread you will see you are telling us mainly things that are exactly
why we started this thread, and we are pleased Brian and Vincent have
offered very constructive solutions.
C
Chris Tomlinson
Thanks for the feedback but we don't quite understand. Currently the image
is sliced into 3 sections, and placed in 3 horizontally aligned divs. It
gives the impression of being one long image, but really they load
independently.
How would putting that into a table benefit?
C
Chris Tomlinson
Vincent van Beveren said:
Good idea, thanks Vincent
Would the <script> sections read the imagemaps in the <noscript> sections,
or would we need to create 2 sets of imagemaps, and put one of them in the
dynamic loading part?
C
Chris Tomlinson
This idea is exciting to us. Can you suggest what sort of JS code might
achieve this?