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Huge webpage takes 150sec to load, need to compress

Dal123

Dal123

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Oct 23, 2008
903
0
England
I have a flash animation on my page and it's a slideshow of some construction work I did. It looks good seeing the stages of the work, however I noticed at the bottom right it takes 150 seconds to download on 1047K.:eek:
Obviously this is no good, what do I do? I checked and my swf. file is only 988kb. I didn't think this was that big.
 
Dal123 said:
I have a flash animation on my page and it's a slideshow of some construction work I did. It looks good seeing the stages of the work, however I noticed at the bottom right it takes 150 seconds to download on 1047K.:eek:
Obviously this is no good, what do I do? I checked and my swf. file is only 988kb. I didn't think this was that big.
Click to expand...

Install Firebug and YSlow then grab Charles so you can see what's taking so long
 
You can resize/resample your images. Generally you want to try and get images under 100KB, even below 50KB when you can. There might be options in Flash to do some optimization for you as well.
 
If I was to change my images, would this not cause me problems, I did it in Dreamweaver yesterday and it really made it hard for me. I got so confused; couldn't load my logo back. Had to delete it, open in image ready and optimize again.
I'm worried; I have loads of images on my root folder, I have not optimized them yet, or put them on my page. When/if I ever finish the site :p when I upload will this all slow down my site or will only the files being used / viewed. And would not matter if I had 100 billion gigabytes uploaded?
Thanks for input, much appreciated!
 
Firebug and YSlow, Firebug looks good. Just about to look at YSlow, I'm a beginner, do you think I'll be able to work them. I think Firebug could be good at teaching me code as I go along. So far I know nothing about code.
 
Having large images on your server is not a problem... you only have to worry about the files you are actively serving.

You flash file is large. Check the compression settings (in Publish settings) to make sure that your images are getting properly compressed within your SWF. You can also set compression settings in the library.

Also, you need to make sure your site images are well compressed (using Photoshop or similar). Unless you have some large, full screen backgrounds try to keep your images under 40k.

Images with solid blocks of color in them compress tighter as GIF files. Images that are more "photographic" are better as JPG.
 
Flash must copy original files.

Thanks for all help so far people. Just a little more needed please::p
When I created this animation I stored the pictures used in a special folder for this animation (In this folder contains; animation itself .fla, .swf, and pictures used in jpeg format.
So I used adobe image ready and checked them out; you were correct. They were 1100 pixels wide and taking up a lot of space. I only need about 450 pixels wide.
So set the files to the new setting of 450 pixels wide and 'saved them as optimized'. Had a look at their general info and they were about 50KB; much better.
Then went back into flash and they are still 1100 wide, and taking up huge amounts of space. Flash must copy the original files used or something like that, or I must have to refresh the list. I tried looking into the library in flash to compress them and alter their size. However when I alter their size in flash it does not reduce the whole image; it just crops them if you know what I mean. Instead of getting smaller image you just get the bottom left corner of the image.:(
Regards Chums:D.
 
If the new files have the same name as the old large files, go into your flash library, select the image(s) and choose 'update'. If you used new names you'll just have to import the new ones and replace the old ones.
 
Good Idea Miles

:rolleyes: Good Idea Miles, I'll spend another day or two recreating the whole animation:rolleyes:. When I can go into the library and change the location. What a p"""k!:rolleyes:
Decksnap thanks for your input, much appreciated, I have tried going through the library and updating, there seems to be a problem locating the files; despite them being there. Sure there's just a little tweaking left.
Thanks for all input so far people excluding Miles.
Regards
 
Your going to have to re created the animation with the reduced file size images. Or as has been suggested don't use Flash at all, if it is a simple animation you can use animated png or gif.
If it is functionally required for your site to operate then you need to rework your site to be able to operate without the use to flash, flash is for silly little animations and flash video it is not for creating websites, nor parts of websites.

And re reading the first post you said its a slide show just make it with CSS and AJAX. Slide shows are not something that requires flash, you can create a slide show similar to the one demonstrated here or even better ones just using HTML, CSS, and AJAX. It will consume less resources on the client, not require a property plug in, be much more scalable as you will not need to recompile to change a picture or add more, and be more accessible as screen readers and other accessibility tools do not work with flash.
 
Thank you babyjennifer, I tried creating a smaller animation with smaller files and far less frames, it is still taking about 20-30 secs.
Thanks for posting that link with google ajax, bit worried about coding but it is something I will have to persevere with.
Thanks for your help people.:)
 
Can the slideshows be used as links?
I was planning on having certain construction projects showing a few pictures of the project; then when you click on it; displays all the photo's of the project. Maybe on another animation where the photo's slide along and naturally from left to right. Yet you are still able to navigate with arrows and view the picture in greater detail (Thumbnails).
Maybe I'm trying to do too much on my first attempt. I would have thought with time I would be able. I'm not in a massive rush. Am aiming to have it done within a year. Got weekends and an hour or two in the evening to work at it.
Regards
 
Dal123 said:
Can the slideshows be used as links?
I was planning on having certain construction projects showing a few pictures of the project; then when you click on it; displays all the photo's of the project. Maybe on another animation where the photo's slide along and naturally from left to right. Yet you are still able to navigate with arrows and view the picture in greater detail (Thumbnails).
Maybe I'm trying to do too much on my first attempt. I would have thought with time I would be able. I'm not in a massive rush. Am aiming to have it done within a year. Got weekends and an hour or two in the evening to work at it.
Regards
Click to expand...
With the AJAX method you would just enclose the images with the <a> tag, in flash you have to program in some method for each image to deal with a onclick event.
 
Thank you very much babyjennifer, it is exactly what I need:p.
Now I just need to learn about code lol:D.
Thanks again! Much appreciated.
 
Must the photo's come from a html feed (Must I upload my photo's to a site and then grab them from there).
Could I load them from my root folder in dreamweaver?
 
I cannot even get it to load. I've attached my code:
I don't understand what's going on. I have not even got to the stage of changing the dimensions of the slideshow yet.
 

Attachments

  • code.doc
    34 KB · Views: 118
Flash animation are useless for most purposes. There are better ways to present information.

Keep in mind that 10 seconds is the attention span for most people.
 
Read the article.

Consultant, if you read the post you will notice I am no longer using flash. I am using Google Ajax feed programmed in by code.:rolleyes:
 
Yes I agree, Flash is pretty darn cool. Bet it took a while to create them sites, they are a work of art.
 
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