Even if we put aside for the moment the fact that you just aren't going to persuade enough people to do this (and so therefore should seek a solution that doesnt require them to do anything), it doesn't really have a significant effect when browsing LJ. Especially considering that most of us are on broadband today anyway (and if you're not then the page isnt going to jump about that much as it takes so damn long for the images to load anyway).
A more reasonable argument I have heard is people asking that you use the LJ-cut feature if you are going to put images on your blog so that people reading their friends pages dont have to loads up huge amounts of gfx (I think this is also a bit silly in the days of broadband).
Yeah but your chances of persuading even 10% of people to do this is absolutely miniscule...
It would be far better to try and persuade the LJ people to have LJ load the image, work out the width/height, and add it to the IMG tag (optionally of course, but say on by default). I'd be surprised if you got even a handful of people to do this.
Richard - sure, will do. The jumping about annoys me too. I've not posted any images for a while but must admit that I didn't think to add the attributes when I did.
It would be far better to try and persuade the LJ people to have LJ load the image, work out the width/height, and add it to the IMG tag (optionally of course, but say on by default).
I'm not sure this is possible in any way that isn't ick.
Technical question - doesn't specifing the size of the image in pixels cause accessibility problems for people with small screens eg. palms? If so and if the recommended solution is to use a relative size unit how do you convert from an absolute size to a relative one sensibly?
I've no idea what such devices might do. As a matter of usability I'd hope they let the user view the image at a sensible scale no matter what hints are in the HTML.
...in fact the HTML spec explicitly mentions (http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/struct/objects.html#adef-width-IMG) the use of WIDTH and HEIGHT to 'reserve space' for images , as I suggest. So any user agent that does something stupid in this case doesn't have a leg to stand on (even supposing that they'd managed not to notice that it's relatively common practice).
*nods* - I'll have to go back and fiddle with the VF site when I get a chance....
User agents always do stupid things - what is the point of creating standards that we can't force people to follow/have to break to make things work in non-compliant user agents?
Standards that aren't enforced as law are nonetheless useful in several ways:
Those of us prepared to make the effort to interwork with one another have some common ground. Without that everyone would be mutually incompatible, not just those people who won't make the effort.
Standards are often referenced in contracts.
Standards sometimes are effectively enforced as law, though I don't know of any examples of this applying to HTML.
Technical question - doesn't specifing the size of the image in pixels cause accessibility problems for people with small screens eg. palms?
No more than having the image there in the first place, I would have thought. "Size in pixels" is fairly inevitable when you are dealing with bitmap data.
Any time I'm likely to put an image in I normally hide it behind a lj-cut. This way it won't show up on friends pages, and requires people to explicitly click on the cut link. A lot easier than working out image sizes and, I figure, anyone clicking the link can wait.
The main reason I started doing this was because I got annoyed with the mega slow-downs caused by a million meme site graphics that were served from slow overloaded machines. Gah!
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ewx
(no subject)
Date: 2004-09-25 12:13 pm (UTC)Even if we put aside for the moment the fact that you just aren't going to persuade enough people to do this (and so therefore should seek a solution that doesnt require them to do anything), it doesn't really have a significant effect when browsing LJ. Especially considering that most of us are on broadband today anyway (and if you're not then the page isnt going to jump about that much as it takes so damn long for the images to load anyway).
A more reasonable argument I have heard is people asking that you use the LJ-cut feature if you are going to put images on your blog so that people reading their friends pages dont have to loads up huge amounts of gfx (I think this is also a bit silly in the days of broadband).
a bit of an overreaction
Date: 2004-09-25 12:23 pm (UTC)Eh? How so?
I find the effect very noticable, personally. The rate the reader can download things isn't the only factor.
Re: a bit of an overreaction
Date: 2004-09-25 12:26 pm (UTC)It would be far better to try and persuade the LJ people to have LJ load the image, work out the width/height, and add it to the IMG tag (optionally of course, but say on by default). I'd be surprised if you got even a handful of people to do this.
Re: a bit of an overreaction
Date: 2004-09-25 12:32 pm (UTC)Re: a bit of an overreaction
Date: 2004-09-25 01:59 pm (UTC)Richard - sure, will do. The jumping about annoys me too. I've not posted any images for a while but must admit that I didn't think to add the attributes when I did.
It would be far better to try and persuade the LJ people to have LJ load the image, work out the width/height, and add it to the IMG tag (optionally of course, but say on by default).
I'm not sure this is possible in any way that isn't ick.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-09-25 12:24 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-09-25 12:33 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-09-25 12:38 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-09-27 02:58 am (UTC)User agents always do stupid things - what is the point of creating standards that we can't force people to follow/have to break to make things work in non-compliant user agents?
(no subject)
Date: 2004-09-27 03:16 am (UTC)Standards that aren't enforced as law are nonetheless useful in several ways:
(no subject)
Date: 2004-09-25 01:43 pm (UTC)No more than having the image there in the first place, I would have thought. "Size in pixels" is fairly inevitable when you are dealing with bitmap data.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-09-27 03:03 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-09-26 10:24 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-09-27 08:04 am (UTC)The main reason I started doing this was because I got annoyed with the mega slow-downs caused by a million meme site graphics that were served from slow overloaded machines. Gah!