posted on April 4, 2001 04:25:16 AM
I needed to use a lot of pictures on an auction i've got going ... i've gotten a handful of emails (of course, thru eBay) this week from potential bidders who really want to see the pictures but whose computer (or webtv) only loads the top of the listing, and/or maybe a few of the many pics ... i did crop and shrink all of them in hopes that it would load easily for everybody, but i guess that's not the case .... a couple of them even said that they KNOW they want to bid on the auction, but because they can't get the page to load, they also don't have the 'place a bid' area at the bottom of their screen .... my suggestions to them have included 'wait till early morning unbusier internet traffic' plus 'Cntrl-shift' w/reload button, and even told them to go find a friend/relative with a stronger computer chip [in order to bring the whole auction page up] ..... does anyone have any other suggestions i might send their way? ... thanks in advance...
Marcia in Ohio
[email protected]
posted on April 4, 2001 04:29:53 AM
Did you by any chance use HTML in your auction? It sounds like some error in the code is preventing the page from loading all the way. Just having lots of pictures shouldn't do that, unless they are huge in size.
How many pictures are there and what is their average size? You could post the auction number so others could see if it will load correctly for anyone at all.
posted on April 4, 2001 04:54:22 AM
You can put a couple of images on your auction page and using your browser (Netscape Composer, I don't know what the feature is called in Internet Explorer) build a simple web page with all the rest of the images. Put the link to the page in your auction listing rather than all of the images themselves.
Your auction will load faster and your interested parties can decide for themselves whether or not they want to see more images.
Using the simple browser tools, this can be done in a matter of a few minutes.
posted on April 4, 2001 05:35:51 AM
I take it this is the Paper Doll auction? Whoa! 76 pics for one auction, no wonder some of the older systems can't handle the load. Your auction only took 5 secs to load for me, but I have cable.
Nothing wrong with the HTML, I viewed it via Netscape 4.75
posted on April 4, 2001 06:03:23 AM
I'm at 5 minutes and still loading, with at least three pictures showing the Red X of Death.
The best way to do this in the future is to have one or two load with the auction, than LINKS to the rest, with a caption indicating what picture the link leads to.
You are overloading the WebTVers with too much data on the page and their set-top boxes can't hold the whole page for display.
If it has bids, rename about 73 of the pictures (just add an X to the name) and make an addition to the auction with links to thiose pictures. Yes, you will see the broken image icons, but you will not be frustrating potential bidders.
posted on April 4, 2001 06:22:53 AM
I just looked at your auction.
20 of the first 21 pictures did load (one of the first 21 was a red X) but all of the remaining ones turned into red X's.
Like I said earlier, I've never used more than about 13 photos on any one auction, and never had a problem, but I don't use html for wallpaper, templates, or things like that.
posted on April 4, 2001 07:03:19 AM
You are using Auctionwatch to host your pictures and they have a very short time-out on serving up pictures. For those with a slower connection most images will time-out.
If you have a slower than 56k connection try loading this auction and 2 others of yours and you will see some pics will not load and with webtv and some with AOL the complete auction page will not load.
Try doing what Pocono suggested and stitch many of those pics together.
posted on April 4, 2001 07:34:02 AM
Yeppers, it's that paper doll 'lot' auction .... Item #1226052028 ... I'm not good at building a page, or weaving/stitching pictures .... and gosh, this is the auction i was afraid of spending too much time on. LOL ......... i had no idea how many pics i was taking at the time, and only picked a small fraction of the lot to photo .... i think most people that wanted to see the auction already have, so on that note, i'll do what i KNOW i'm capable of, and go into my auctionwatch image host and delete some of them, leaving the more 'interesting' ones to view for the next 24hrs till the auction ends .... thanks for everybody's input ... i appreciate it, AND i've learned a lesson.
Marcia in Ohio
[email protected]
posted on April 4, 2001 07:50:51 AM
It's an HTML coding problem.
Auction watch problem.
The page is coded so that ALL images must be loaded before anything is displayed.
If you code your images correctly in the HTML then the page will show quickly, before the images are loaded. The buyer will be able to read the text while the images are loading. And each image will appear as it is loaded.
Also in general don't use background images. But I think AW requires it. With background images the user must wait until that is loaded until anything is displayed.
