erratic response

**duncan drennan** · 14-Feb-07, 01:56 PM

Okay, I did an interesting experiment.

I logged off and did some page loads and I would estimate that the load times are about 2x as fast for a non-member. Try it out and let me know if you get the same.

**Dave A** · 14-Feb-07, 03:42 PM

A big part is all the colourful graphics. If we went with a bare bones text only setup it would load faster. But no avatars, minimal smilies, no graphics in signatures

It just wouldn't be the same.

There are some pieces of code that load every time that I question anyone is using. One is the forum jump menu at the bottom right hand corner. If we take that out the forum rules on the left hand side at the same level, I don't think anyone would miss it.

Another fairly big piece of code that loads with every thread is the quickreply box. It is very easy to disable and that would stop that bunch of code loading every time. However, I suspect many of us use it.

**Dave A** · 14-Feb-07, 05:18 PM

Originally Posted by dsd

Okay, I did an interesting experiment.

I logged off and did some page loads and I would estimate that the load times are about 2x as fast for a non-member. Try it out and let me know if you get the same.

Sorry - I missed this post in my earlier reply.

As a member you get a lot of extra functionality - and it all takes extra code!
More options on the top menu bar. More options on the bottom menu bar. And lots more in between. Like the info on who's also viewing the thread. And the quickreply box (it really is a lot of code).

**duncan drennan** · 14-Feb-07, 09:03 PM

Just a question here....are you having any kind of bad user experience when working with IE7? Or is it just me?

**Dave A** · 14-Feb-07, 09:59 PM

I was suffering with that right hand column in threads - definitely an IE7 related experience. My only other complaint is the "temporarily allow scripts" issue when making links in posts. Otherwise it's pretty peachy.

I think the time to download the total page issue is an ISP / speed of connection challenge. My testing gave me a worst case of about 10 seconds on a long thread. I've scanned some of the sites that give feedback on page load speed and they're all happy - we're classified as fast. For example Google reports the slowest page it's crawled as a 1.2 second load with an average page load of 0.34 seconds; admittedly that does not include the CSS. Given that Google is crawling an average of over 300 pages a day here, a pretty good indicator. I think South African hindernet connections just tends to be a little slow by international standards

Is there something else that is bugging you?

**duncan drennan** · 14-Feb-07, 10:23 PM

No.

The long download times were for a TOTAL refresh, i.e. nothing from cache. That means every picture, every icon, alles was downloaded. When browsing normally a page load is MUCH faster, like under 10s.

It's a pity that the right hand column is causing that issue in IE - I found IE practically unsuable (I was use it when I'm using my wife's laptop so that I don't have to log her out).

It was just niggling away at me because I felt that people might come to the site and have things take really long and think that it was either broken, or a crap site - of which it is neither. It is a great and cool site, I just want people to experience it that way

**I Robot** · 18-Feb-07, 10:04 AM

I've disabled quickreply and the forum jump menu menu to reduce the HTML hit.
/Waits for feedback

**bullfrog** · 18-Feb-07, 03:54 PM

Originally Posted by Administrator

I've disabled quickreply and the forum jump menu menu to reduce the HTML hit.
/Waits for feedback

nooooo, my fav quick reply is gone

**duncan drennan** · 18-Feb-07, 05:02 PM

Originally Posted by Administrator

I've disabled quickreply and the forum jump menu menu to reduce the HTML hit.
/Waits for feedback

This is just my thoughts, but I'm not too sure how much pure HTML will really impact on the download times. I'm on a fast link, so there shouldn't be any significant delay if it is just text (i.e. html). The things that I would be suspicious of (particularly with IE) are scripts and any type of java. The total load time is just toooo sluggish for it to just be the html (well, that's what I think).

This whole thing still bugs me, and for some reason I don't think it was inherently the side bar (although maybe, who knows).

BUT, we've messed around with it quite a bit (sorry I've been scratching), so no need to spend too much more time on it. I seem to be the only one that it bugs, so if no one else is seeing long load times, it might be time to put it to bed.