Viewing resized images

[Yousuf Khan]

I'm thinking about this for dialup users. When you display a large image,
such as a *.JPG or *.GIF to a webpage, which has resized them inside the
<img> tag with the "width" and "height" attributes, does that make it easier
(faster) to view it? What I'm sort of asking is whether I should save
seperate thumbnail versions of large images, or just rely on the <img> tag
attributes?

Yousuf Khan

 

[Mark Parnell]

I'm thinking about this for dialup users.

Very generous of you.

When you display a large image,
such as a *.JPG or *.GIF to a webpage, which has resized them inside the
<img> tag with the "width" and "height" attributes, does that make it easier
(faster) to view it?

Depends whether it has been made bigger or smaller in the HTML. Assuming
you mean smaller...

Faster than what? Than at full size? Maybe marginally. Than a smaller
version of the same image? Of course not.

What I'm sort of asking is whether I should save
seperate thumbnail versions of large images, or just rely on the <img> tag
attributes?

Don't resize images in your HTML. Besides the user having to download an
unnecessarily large file, browsers are pretty bad at resizing images
anyway. Much better to resize it in an image editing program and just
use the smaller version on your site.

 

[Sid Ismail]

: I'm thinking about this for dialup users. When you display a large image,
: such as a *.JPG or *.GIF to a webpage, which has resized them inside the
: <img> tag with the "width" and "height" attributes, does that make it easier
: (faster) to view it? What I'm sort of asking is whether I should save
: seperate thumbnail versions of large images, or just rely on the <img> tag
: attributes?


Using smaller width and height in the IMG tag does not speed up the access
time, as the _full_ image is still downloaded into cache. All you've done
is to change the presentation. In fact, you've increased the access time,
as there is now an extra step to resize.

Use clickable thumbnails instead, yes, and the user can view the full
picture, if he wishes, with the simple expedient of a click on the
thumbnail.

Sid