Well, it occured to me a while back that after reaching a certain length forum messages usually break into separate pages, but that's probably a network54 issue, not specific to this forum. Is there perhaps a way to ask the Network54 people if the pages can be set to break into multiples? Maybe after a specific number of responses? An adjustable number of responses, depending on the needs of the particular forum would be optimal. If that were possible and we only put a few images in each post there wouldn't be as many images trying to load on one page at a time.
For your suggestions, Patrick,
"Limit our photo subjects to just brugs & their relatives."
If we did that we'd have to take out the roses, hibiscus, plumeria, morning glories, passion flowers, other plants and general garden pictures, as well as herps, insects, animals, pets and family photos that everyone seems to like.
"Allow only thumbnail pics."
I thought we already did that? Those who can't/don't use thumbnails on their own, doesn't Ruth Ann fix it for them?
"Exclude slide show & video presentations (they seem to slow down the process of opening an album)."
Nothing to say here. I don't surf with ActiveX enabled and prefer not to use JavaScript and Cookies when possible. The slide shows as well as any other Shockwave Flash content won't load for me because I choose not to have the added security risk.
"Allow those who post lots of photos to start a new album each year, so any one album won't contain so many photos."
If breaking the albums into multiple connected pages isn't possible, this may be the best way to do it.
One other thought, if you're viewing an album and only want to see the newer photos, as you open a page let the text load, then click "view" and "stop" on the toolbar at the top of the page. This stops the rest of the page from loading. From there, slide down to the newest pictures and backclick (rightclick) on a picture and select "show picture," that will load only that image. It takes a bit more effort than sitting back and waiting for everything to load, but it can be quite a bit faster on the load time. I'm on dial-up and end up viewing galleries as well as posts that way fairly often, not to mention many pages elsewhere online. (That's with IE, other browsers should have something similar, but I'm unfamiliar with them.)
I know my gallery is full, overly so, I can't even load the entire page in one shot. As I get the chance I've been deleting photos from it, all the old pictures will still be at photobucket though.
Lynne
USDA 9b, Heat 10
Bradenton, Florida
