I have a very simple website which is basically a photo album, with thumbnails and pop-ups. Not everyone allows pop-ups, though, so I decided that I would create a separate page for each photo and create a slideshow - controlled by forward and back links, rather than automatically changing. I have made a start, but before I go any further, can anybody tell me if using this method will increase the size of my website significantly. I have "free" web space with my ISP, but it is limited to 20MB in size, and bandwidth usage is also restricted. Using pop-ups, I am approaching 19 MB so any increase might be a problem, I guess.

Many thanks
Trik

When a web page is stored on your site, it will not consume much disk space since it is only a text file. A very large web page is probably no more than 50KB. What consumes disk space are images, video and audio files.

But if each of your web pages runs about 5KB, and you have hundreds of them (one for each photo), then the "cost" of doing your pages this way adds up and eats into your alloted space.

You could try moving to a scripted slideshow. Such a script is included once in a web page and accesses your photos as image files rather than as web pages.

Thanks for the info, Larryd. I have read Bruceee`s tutorials on creating I-frames using javascript, and it looks too complicated for me, I`m afraid - assuming that is what you meant by "scripted slideshow"? I am not even sure if it will create the `look` I want, either.

I`ve checked out the file size of some of the extra pages I`ve created, via the Preview folder, and they are 4KB each, so if I multiply that by the number of photos I have, and add the total to the size of my site as it is now, will that give me a fairly accurate figure, do you think? Or can I deduct anything for not using pop-ups?

I may have to grit my teeth and pay for an unlimited website eventually. At least then I could put it in the public domain, I suppose...

Thanks again for the reply.
Trik

Using a 4KB size multiplied by the number of images will give you the approximate size of your web pages. Add to that the size off all your images and the sum should be close to the actual disk requirements.

Remember that the images are not part of you web page until they are put in a browser. At that point, the text web page loads the image.

Another option is to make an SWF slide show with your images, and place that into a foreign object.

A good compiler is available at the following link.

http://www.antssoft.com/swfslide/index.htm

This program gives you the option to place forward and back buttons in the show, or to automatically scoll through.

Terry

SwfSlide looks interesting, so thank you for the suggestion.

At the moment, I have been copying and pasting the extra pages. The basic design uses a small, tiled background, plus two .jpg banners, as well as text links for forward, back and return to thumbnails page. There is also a single-cell table to insert the photo in. Would cloning the entire page save on file size, or would creating a template be better? I have worked out that the total size of all the extra pages would amount to just under 1MB, so if I can save something it would help.

Thanks again for your patience and help.
Trik

You can't "clone" a whole page unless you you give it special treatment -- setting the page copy mode for each object to "clone".

A template is the same amount of work -- there is a tutorial on the subject. Your aim should be that where the same image appears in two or more places, you reuse the image rather than create a new one.

Thanks for the reply, Bruceee.

I tried setting the page copy parameters for my two banners and the table cell to clone, but found that cloning the table meant that when I placed an image in it, that image appeared in all the cloned tables. What I have now been doing is copying the banners and then clicking `paste clone`. However, I have noticed that, although the "geometry" number remains constant, the "object" number changes for each pasted clone. Is this correct, or am I still doing something wrong, please?

Trik

Trik, maybe I’m a little confused here, but you state that your problem is the amount of disk storage that your ISP’s “free” web hosting offers, that is, 20mb.

You seem to be focusing on the size of your web pages, which Larry points out is very minimal. The disk storage space you use will be based on the total size of your images that have to be uploaded to your server.

Most ISP free provided web hosting services will always be small and are provided for individual family and friend purposes only.

If you are going to persist in developing your site in the manner you are doing it at the moment, you may want to do a google search for the multitude of free hosting services available.

I did a quick search and found this one.

http://www.zymic.com/free-web-hosting/

It offers 5000mb (5 GIG) of disk space, 50000mb (50 GIG) of bandwith, FTP access, PHP, MySql and many other facilities.

I’m sure there are plenty of others available also.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, you can also decrease the amount if disk space used by using a program similar to SWF Slide.

As an example, I have three of these that I have developed on my site.

One (Hunter Valley Gardens) includes 42 images with a total size of about 7mb plus a music background of 3mb, a total of 10mb. The resulting SWF file is compressed to7mb.

Another (Darling Harbour) has 24 images plus a music file, total 6mb which reduces to 4.5mb.

Niether of these have a navigation panel, and progress at timed intervals.

The best example is “Goulburn 2007 Motor Show”.

There are 102 images, a total of 61mb. No music with his one, but includes a navigation panel so the user can scroll backwards or forwards (if it is not used, there is an extended timed auto advance). Using SWF Slide, I also placed text on each image to give details of year and model of each vehicle.

This whole show is compressed to 6mb without loss of quality. Obviously it makes a difference to compression when a background music file is not included.

If you are interested in having a look at these examples, please visit the link below.

Hunter Valley Gardens is the 9th item down the page. Darling Harbour is number 13, and the Goulburn Motor Show is right at the bottom.

The only disadvantage of this is that all of the images are loaded in one file, and does take some time. However, using your method, the user is still having to load all images, but one at a time.

http://www.tratcliffe.com/downloads.html

Best of luck.

Terry

quote:

Originally posted by Trik:
... What I have now been doing is copying the banners and then clicking `paste clone`. However, I have noticed that, although the "geometry" number remains constant, the "object" number changes for each pasted clone. Is this correct, or am I still doing something wrong, please?

For clones, expect the geometry and shading numbers to be the same but the object number to be different. You will also need to uncheck "Unique Clones" in the Object Editor > Components tab for the object -- preferably before you start cloning it.

An easy test for duplicate images is to clear your preview folder, preview all, and then view the fresh images in the preview folder.

You are right, postyr, I am trying to keep the size of disk storage space down, and I do realise that the bulk of that space is taken up by the number and size of my images rather than the web pages themselves. I suspect that maybe I haven`t compressed my image files enough, so perhaps that should be my first priority.

I checked out the free web-hosting link you provided and it does sound good. I always thought that free web-hosting was paid for by advertising banners all over the place, though, but Zymic state that their service is “ad-free”. I wonder where their money comes from, then? I would need to find out a lot more about free web-hosting before deciding to use that route. Being an old cynic, I usually take the view that if something sounds too good to be true, it usually is!

I visited your website to view the Hunter Valley Gardens video, but, as you warned me, it was taking such a long time to download, I gave up, I`m afraid. The advantage that I was hoping to achieve with my method is that viewers would only open those images that interested them enough to want to see a larger picture, which I hope will keep bandwidth usage down and be more user-friendly.

Brucee – I had not unchecked “Unique Clones” before copying and pasting-as-clone my repeated banners, so many thanks for pointing that out.

I shall plod away with this new project, and if I find that its size on disk is too big after all, I shall have to change back to the old one, which I know is slightly less than my allowed space. However, I am learning new things with help from this forum and by trial and error and am finding it interesting, if a bit frustrating at times.

Thanks for all your help.
Trik