Re-Opened Can we cut the page length in half?

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extropic

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On a PC, Intel, Win 10, Chrome.

I live in a rural, wooded area. There is no cable here. The trees make satellite access nonviable. I'm at the extreem end of the local DSL network.
A Verizon mobile hotspot provides my current internet access. Having 5 Mbps download speed is a rare good moment for me.

My complaint is that it takes Toooooo long to load some threads that I follow. It's common for the download to time-out and the little "image" icons will appear. At that point it seems faster to open the image in a new tab. I blame the proliferation of giant, unedited photos for the high data consumption needed to load a page of many threads.

Since I have zero expectation of all members posting reasonable sized photos, I wonder if shortening the length of a displayed "page" is a viable way to improve access speed. In other words, if the page was substantially shorter, there would be substantially fewer photos to load to view that page. It's frustrating to wait for last weeks photos to load in order to see todays photos at the bottom of the same page. I can't think of a downside to a much shorter page, but then I'm not an IT expert.

What say you?
 
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One of the problems we have run across is limiting image upload sizes.

On the one hand, native image sizes are unreasonably large but high quality. It is easy for lost members to just upload and be done with it. We have had to upgrade server space a number of times over the years because of this.

On the other hand, asking members to reduce file sizes prior to uploading has resulted in reduced participation. For most members, it is unmanageable, too much work or they just don’t know how.

The file compression tools do two things: compress at upload and compress stored files. Upon reading this thread last night. I revisited our Image Compression tool last night. It started throwing errors immediately on what appeared to be every cycle. I disabled the add-on.

We can go back to reducing the size of images allowed. And I can go in and start batch reducing images (somehow) to increase performance.

@extropic, looking further into it, reducing page sizes appears to be set at the minimum already. I’m searching for another option that allows for members to toggle photos on/off.


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when I click on a picture sometimes it takes 30 seconds to load and only shows the top half other times I let it load for 5 minutes and the screen ist still black with the spining circles and I have good wifi but i guess a old ipad mini 2 cant handle that.
 
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vtcnc said:
The file compression tools do two things: compress at upload and compress stored files. Upon reading this thread last night. I revisited our Image Compression tool last night. It started throwing errors immediately on what appeared to be every cycle. I disabled the add-on.
Click to expand...
That is just evidence of an abysmal software tool. I tried to make clear in post #5 the difference between "data compression" such as is done for file archive, etc. and re-sizing the image by one of the standard interpolation methods. The process is fast, and straightforward, and is not error prone.
Every image I post has had this done!
@extropic, looking further into it, reducing page sizes appears to be set at the minimum already. I’m searching for another option that allows for members to toggle photos on/off.
Click to expand...
How about a pop-up request to members to consider reducing the image size?
Instead of, or even in addition to, a switch to toggle photos on/off, would not the that be nearly equivalent to automatically only initially displaying the thumbnails, and have the switch display full size in the browser only if the user wants it on that posting.

Again, if the user opts to download, and save-as, he should have the high resolution real deal.

The difficulty here is that site software cannot tell if a large file is truly high resolution, with new detail in adjacent pixels, or from merely a low resolution smartphone picture encoded with too many pixels

The comment from @sycle1 in post #9 is also pertinent. He is right! There are other sites with big pictures, and videos that do not have server reponse latency problems. This is not the same thing as trying to make life easier for folk with very slow connections. We can aim to try and help both situations, without reducing ultimate functionality for what the site offers.
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One situation that is the case now, is the limit on upload size for PDF manuals. Many are larger than 10MB. If this were adjusted, it would not impact speed of site page display, and if a user chose to download, he knows how long it will take. This can be done, even if the connection is interrupted, or has errors. For two decades now, my file fetcher has been able to "take up where it left off" on a partial file download that went wrong, or the line dropped out.
 
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I'm not sure how it happens, but I have noticed a number of sites I'm on have a 'mobile' version that doesnt load photos and has less details on it, specifically for those who have slow streams such as on phones. Would this be an option?
 
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I just tried to view the latest posts in the POTD-... thread. The latest posts are on page 126. The first post on page 126 is from Dec 1, 2020.
There are MANY (I'm unwilling to count them) huge photos on that page and after about 5 minutes of trying to load, the process timed out. Some photos loaded, but many IMG_xxx.jpg icons are displayed instead. Ugg!

@vtcnc, 10 replies per page would seem more appropriate than the current count (30?).
Is the software owner/developer available/willing to implement a lower limit?
Thanks for your efforts.
 
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extropic said:
I just tried to view the latest posts in the POTD-... thread. The latest posts are on page 126. The first post on page 126 is from Dec 1, 2020.
There are MANY (I'm unwilling to count them) huge photos on that page and after about 5 minutes of trying to load, the process timed out. Some photos loaded, but many IMG_xxx.jpg icons are displayed instead. Ugg!

@vtcnc, 10 replies per page would seem more appropriate than the current count (30?).
Is the software owner/developer available/willing to implement a lower limit?
Thanks for your efforts.
Click to expand...
OK, we are going to try 10 replies per page.
 
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vtcnc said:
OK, we are going to try 10 replies per page.
Click to expand...

Just to clarify, when I have written "page size", what I meant was "replies per page".
I suspect there has been some confusion because "page size" may be another parameter.

Limiting the replies to 10 per page has got to speed load times a lot. Thanks
 
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extropic said:
Just to clarify, when I have written "page size", what I meant was "replies per page".
I suspect there has been some confusion because "page size" may be another parameter.

Limiting the replies to 10 per page has got to speed load times a lot. Thanks
Click to expand...
Yes, I'm clear and understand what you were referring to. There are other limitations that I can enable but I am really loathe to utilize those for fear of discouraging use. I.e. limiting number of attachments, etc.

We will see if this helps.
 
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I am having a bit more times where it takes long to load anything but I could be my WiFi
 
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Most phones let you reduce the resolution of photo files, as far as I know. Maybe newer ones are fixed? That would be inconvenient
-M
 
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