Front Page

[jellytot01]

I am creating a website using Front Page fror a school project. I need to reduce the download rate by quite a ubstantial amount.

Any ideas?

[jenstar]

You could reduce the download rate by, er, using just about anything other than FrontPage, which is notorious for producing bloated output.

[OBonio]

Use JPG and GIF files (NOT BMP or PNG files) for graphics.

Don't embed sounds or movies into the page unless absolutely necessary.

Also, can the content be split into more than one page? Having to scroll down lots usually means your layout isn't right and needs to be split further.

[Buenchico]

Long download times are usually due excessively large graphics (picture) files. If you want to see what I mean, take a look at this link:
http://cheetah.webtribe.net/~yewlandspast/
The home page (created in FrontPage) loads incredibly quickly, simply because it contains no graphics. Then try clicking on a link like 'Classroom B'. This page (created in Photoshop) contains just 5 small (thumbnail) pictures, each of less than 10kb but it takes far, far longer to download than the home page. Just try to imagine how much longer the page would take to load if full-sized pictures had been used!

So what should you do?
1. Don't use more graphics than really necessary (especially on the home page of the web site).

2. If you're using cartoons, drawings, clip art, logos or symbols make sure they're 'gif' files. These are smaller than the 'jpg' files which you need for photographs.

3. Don't use fancy stuff like Flash animations. (These massively increase download times).

4. If you have to use photographs, use 'jpg' format but try to keep the file size to less than 30kb (or 50 kb at the very most). To compress file sizes use Photoshop (if you've got access to it) or a freebie program like Irfanview or The Gimp:
http://www.irfanview.com/
http://www.gimp.org/

5. Don't put too many graphics (epecially photos) on one page. Consider using thumbnails linking to larger pictures if you think it's necessary.

6. Keep your site as simple as possible. Don't try to show off your design skills. If the site is, say, about amateur dramatics, the idea is to produce a site which shouts "Am-Dram is Great!" and not one which shouts "This site was designed by a techno-nerd who

[Buenchico]

Er, this a bit of a non-post really. Just to say that the sentence truncated by AB ended "...doesn't live in the real world".

I've also noticed OBonio's comments which were posted while I was composing my little contribution. I definitely agree that embedded sound and music files should be avoided. (If, and only if, you really have to have sounds or movies as part of your web site, then use 'Click here to listen/view' rather than 'embedding' the files (which means that viewers have to wait for the files to download, whether they want them or not).

Chris

[wideboy]

Optimising graphics is a useful technique in Frontpage (along with all the suggestions above). Try here:-

It's important to optimise any graphics used on a web page so that they don't slow the page down.

"Take as a rule of thumb that, for everything beyond the first 10K or so, every additional 1K in graphic size costs you approximately 1-2% in readership."

- All Things Web (ATW), Site Optimization Strategies

According to Everyone's Guide to Optimizing Graphics, - http://www.pantos.org/atw/35273.html

a non-technical discussion provided by ATW: "Depending on the image(s) involved and the techniques used, it's really fairly easy to reduce the size of graphics files by at least 50% without perceptibly affecting image quality. Savings of 75% and more are not uncommon."

Many graphics packages and image editors offer built-in optimising for the web. Most of these are quite expensive. It's possible to do the optimising yourself using simpler graphics programs. Try Tucows software repository for free or shareware image editing programs.
Alternatively, use one of the free online graphics optimisation services:

Gifbot - free online graphics optimiser (http://www.netmechanic.com/GIFBot/optimize-graphic.htm
Spinwave Crunchers - free online jpeg and gif 'Crunches' - http://www.spinwave.com/crunchers.html

JPEG Wizard Online Optimizer - http://www.jpegwizard.com/

Gleaned from:-

http://www.wel.org.au/about/help/statehelp.htm

[wideboy]

I was sure that FrontPage had an option to optimise graphics but I can't find it. Maybe it was Publisher or some other package?