An "overabundance" of graphics?

I am one of those people still using dial up, which I know is slower than all of those high speed and cable connections. I am finding that the threads take longer and longer to load, because of all of the graphics people are using in their signatures. Some threads with only 5 or 6 posts will have in excess of 35 graphics, which slows everything down.

This is worth waiting for when they are kitty photos or something new and interesting. But often they are just the multiple graphics in signature lines, and often the same people are posting in the same threads, so we get those graphics loading over and over again, and keeping everything bogged down.

Could we have some rules for signature graphics? As in, number of graphics a person can use...(I know that several images can be combined in a single graphic file with no problem at all), or in the actual bandwidth that the signature graphics take up?

That would certainly aid in my enjoyment of the Cat Site.

I have heard similar complaints from other members. So far we've been very liberal with allowing images in signatures but if that is a hindrance to some members (and many are using dial-up) then we'll have to do something about it.

Thank you for your feedback - others are welcome to comment on the subject as well.

An option is to turn off the avatars and signatures. Go to your UserCP, then click on Edit Options. Scroll down to Thread View Options and you will be able to turn off people's avatars and signature graphics.

There was a complaint similar to yours on another board and most members were satisfied in having the option to turn off the graphics.

And not see beautiful Nakita? GASP!!!!

Although it is great the option is there, some of the signatures are way out of hand size-wise. I have gotten complaints in the past from members and I believe that if there is a size restriction placed, it might be a good option as opposed to not seeing any signatures as all.

As I told one complainant, for me, the identity of the person is not wrapped up in the signature line, but in the actual body of the post itself and what the member says there. The signature line should be treated like a business card, not a billboard advertisement.

Maybe we could have a set signature size that people would have to abide by, for instance, pictures in signatures cannot exceed more than 250 x 120 pixals (just an example) and something like 50k. I think that might help. I agree that very large signatures tend to clutter up the boards.

Well, for the short term, I did what Russian Blue suggested, and turned off the signature graphics. That solves the problem! I don't know why I didn't find that sooner. Thanks

Now, people should know that their lovely creative signatures are causing the threads to load slowly. It may be something that we need to see concensus about. The trade off will be having complex signatures, and knowing that people on the board will not look at them. Or reducing the size and number, knowing that more people will see them.

I don't use photos in my signature line. First of all, if I were to try and fit all my kitties' pics in it, either it would be HUGE, or else you'd need a magnifying glass to see them all!

I totally agree in reducing the size as Sicycat suggested. There should be a limit on what is shown in the signature line. For some signatures you really have to scroll a lot just to go from one post to another in a thread because of the graphics.

Even though I have a high speed connection, my scrolling finger is tired and my mouse is looking a little tired too!!

I agree with Sammie. Turning off the option is a temporary fix. Many members have good links in their sigs, and those get lost as well. I am on a cable modem, and I still find that sometimes the forums are slow or incomplete in loading.

The ideal "weight" of an internet page - html+images should not excceed 40k. As we have 15 posts per page I think images should be kept way below 40k each - something along the lines of 12k makes more sense to me...

Perhaps someone computer savy could display an image that size so others such as myself can see if my signature breaks those restriction sizes?

To give you an idea of size M.A., my signature pictures are 14kb (229 x 119) for Nakita the beauty and 7 kb (212 x 119 pixels) for the Goofy Nakita pic.

The signature with your name Hissy is 130 x 57 pixels.

Wow.. 12k is pretty small. And could make the image lose a lot of quality. It would be kind of abrupt to go from unlimited all the way down to 12k.

Russian Blue how did you make your pic 7k but still have such good quality?

I think it's fairly easy to produce good quality JPG's for web display using Photoshop (just use the "save for web" command in the file menu). The problem is with animated images like the one in your signature - those have to be GIFs and complex GIFs using photos as their base can get to be quite big (file size).

Originally posted by Sicycat
Russian Blue how did you make your pic 7k but still have such good quality?

Click to expand...

I had the camera set on the email setting (for picture quality). If you increased the size of that pic, you would see that it is not the best quality for larger pictures.

I see.

I have used Save For Web plenty of times.. it still decreases the quality of the picture the lower you go.

The picture of Snowball in my signature is 206 x 172 pixels. Is that under 12k?

You can find out how big in file size pictures are by right clicking on them and choosing "properties". It will say 'Size = " and in how many bytes. So if its 7750 bytes, its about 7.7kb.

My pics are 7KB each....so I think I should resize them to make them a bit smaller.

I just finally added them too, and now I realize that I'm over the 12 KB limit Anne set! woops!

EEK! Guess I better use something different for mine! I know I'm over on both pixel size and download size.

Sorry dial-uppers!

Wow, 12K is really small.

Oh, and I like your signature Daniela! It's so good to see your pretty kitties.