I am new to RapidWeaver. I am a graphic designer not a web designer. I have ‘designed’ 2 similar websites.
Apart from font issues which I am addressing elsewhere :
I am ‘updating’ banner images which are updating on some pages but not others. Also these images are updating partially or not at all on some platforms…but updating fully on others. (Notably iPad).
I use A2 Hosting (as recommended by RW) who say this is not their problem.
Providing relevant URLs will help us to help you.
If there’s partial loading that’s an indication that your images may be way too large. What size (in k or Mb, not pixels) are the images? What theme or framework (Foundry, Foundation) are you using?
By “updating partially or not at all” do you mean that some images update and others do not?
My guess is that you’re seeing cached versions of the banner images. Web browsers cache images locally so that they do not need to download them every time they display them. Some browsers are more aggressive at caching than others, Safari is very aggressive at caching.
You can clear your browser’s cache manually, but many times just quitting and restarting the browser is sufficient.
Thanks for the response ! I am using Foundry.
The images I am using are exported from Lightroom Smart Previews as JPEGs. I have control of the size of the JPEGs I can export…in this case all images are limited to a maximum of 1.5 mb.
This method retains the images original sharpness extremely well for the web.
The images in question only appear 4 times on one website and 3 times on the other.
Depending on which site and the platform it’s usually just the Home page image not updating and sometimes page 2.
Ron
Ron: It would still help if you provided a URL to the specific pages where you are having problems. Otherwise we are just guessing.
… however as a general rule-of-thumb it’s best if web images are no longer than about 300k in size. 1.5 Mb, and potentially several of them, are huge for the web. Without further info this is still likely your biggest issue (though it’s hard to know for sure).
While 300k is a guideline, it’s a pretty good one. Using images on the web is the art of compromise and you clearly haven’t compromised! It’s going to make loading images especially hard/slow on mobile devices.
The images I am using are exported from Lightroom Smart Previews as JPEGs. I have control of the size of the JPEGs I can export…in this case all images are limited to a maximum of 1.5 mb.
This method retains the images original sharpness extremely well for the web.
The images in question only appear 4 times on one website and 3 times on the other.
Depending on which site and the platform it’s usually just the Home page image not updating and sometimes page 2.
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Oh dear. This size business could be a major problem then.
I am selling photos and digital art. I need the images to look classy.
I also have dozens of other images which are the products I am trying to sell. All these are restricted to less than 1mb.
These are the 2 sites:
www.pictographix.co.uk
www.hickey-photo.co.uk
The banner images have embedded text. The updated images have a compressed font.
From the feedback I have had it seems that people are viewing the sites easily enough.
They come up on my mobile fast enough.
BTW there are font issues which I am trying to resolve. I might need to buy something like FontPro?
For the moment I just need to address the image issues.
I already responded to this a short while ago…but further to my reply :
I have tried restricting the size of of one of my banner images to less than 300k and although there is a small reduction in quality I am pleasantly surprised that it could well be usable (and I am looking at it quite big on an iMac.
Regards Ron
Without a URL to the site you’re having issues with, as @Mathew said “ Otherwise we are just guessing“.
As for image sizes, there’s no real rules, it’s more a suggestion. The larger size images, the slower the page loads. The slower the page loads, the less likely the user is going to wait around. Because of the poor user experience a slower page creates, search engines can penalize the page ranking for slower pages.
It’s really a balancing act, quality of the image versus speed. And keep in mind it’s the total page weight and NOT the size of a single image. Ten 300kb images on a single page is just as bad as two 1.5mb images.
Thank you for your response.
I’ve taken on board what you’re suggesting. At the moment I’ll hold fire on clearing caches…it’s a bit of a pain when cookies disappear from some websites. (eg banks!).
Another respondent has pointed out that my images might be unnecessarily large. I have tested a reduced image size on one of the images and got quite a satisfactory result…so what I’ll try first is sizing down all the banners.
I have about a hundred product images also spread across the 2 sites…at the moment that’s quite an exercise re-sizing those. One step at a time !
Herewith :
My 2 websites
www.pictographix.co.uk
www.hickey-photo.co.uk
I am going to resize the banner images as suggested. A test run re-sizing one banner image was actually quite satisfactory.
The product images over 2 sites number over a hundred I think. That’ll take some time to resize and replace the images I have presently.
So…one thing at a time.
You may see fonts appearing differently from place to place. This I am trying to resolve elsewhere.
Ron
You should be able to clear the browser’s cache without removing the cookies, even so, you need to get used to doing that if you are developing websites. You can also use a different browser than the one you use day in and day out. If you like Safari for the default, then use the new MS Edge, chrome or firefox to test your sites with.
You really need to test them on every browser you can anyway.
The first thing to do is resize all the images. Most are larger than they can be displayed.
With that many images, you might have a look at something like PhotoBulk.
You can do a lot of these repetitive tasks in a single pass.
@RonH Yes, there’s no reason resizing and optimizing a bunch of images needs to be a lot of work. PhotoBulk is a wonderful app. So is PhotoJob. Both are at the Mac App store.
Another option is Retrobach (comes in regular and pro). I love this one the most: but partly for other reasons that may not be relevant to your situation. At any rate, also worth a look:
https://flyingmeat.com/retrobatch/
The reason that these kinds of apps exist is primarily that others are also faced with the same stuation as you.
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