Speeding Up Your Webpage

        Reprinted, with permission, from the Buffer (Volume 31, Number 7/8 July/ August 1996), the newsjournal of computing at the University of Denver (DU). Bob Stocker (bstocker@du.edu), Director of Academic Computing at DU, is the author of the article. It is archived at http://www.du.edu/~buffer/julaug96/speedweb.html

        I had a nightmare last night. While net surfing, I clicked on a link to get the latest baseball scores. The browser icon became animated. Text flashing at the bottom of the screen indicated files were being delivered to my computer. I waited and waited while a huge graphic of a smiling baseball wearing a Colorado Rockies cap arrived.

        The alarm went off before I could see the Rockies score on the second screen.

        Perhaps it's just as well. The Rockies were on the road.

        Width and Height

        Fortunately, the page with the smiling baseball exists only in my nightmare.

        However, you've probably seen pages like it. Perhaps, you even own one yourself. If you do, you can make life a lot easier for your visitors by adding WIDTH and HEIGHT attributes to your tags. Here's an example using the popular "University of Denver" text image that has been showing up on many DU pages:

        < IMG SRC="http://www.du.edu/clipart/3du.jpg" WIDTH=300 HEIGHT=54 ALT="University of Denver" >

        Adding the WIDTH and HEIGHT attributes does not speed up the process of downloading your Web page, but it does allow the browser to begin formatting your page before receiving all the information. Visitors can go to the second screen before the first screen is complete.

        There are several convenient ways to get WIDTH and HEIGHT information for an image. If the image is already on the Web, look at it by going directly to its URL (Uniform Resource Locator) address with Netscape.

        For example, to look at the 3du.jpg image in the above example, enter http://www.du.edu/clipart/3du.jpg in Netscape's Location dialog box. Netscape displays the WIDTH and HEIGHT attributes of the image on the title bar at the top of the window.

        Visiting Dr. HTML

        If your browser does not have this convenient feature, you can have your page analyzed by Imagiware's Doctor HTML Web site at

        http://imagiware.com/RxHTML/

        If you provide Doctor HTML with the URL for your page, it will analyze your HTML (HyperText Markup Language), validate your hyperlinks, determine your image attributes, and provide a detailed technical criticism of your page. It's worth getting a check-up from DoctorHTML even if you know the WIDTH and HEIGHT of your smiling baseball image.

        Previous Article <== ==> Next Article

        If you have any problems or questions about this server, contact us as soon us as soon as possible. You can send mail to the following address: www@unt.edu