1) I've been creating thumbnails by holding the control key down and making my images smaller with my mouse on the corner 'handles'. Is this the correct way to create thumbs or do I need to create a thumb in Irfanview?

2) Does SS automatically compress image files when they are inserted on to a page or do I need to compress them before insertion?

3)If I type in an image title/name is this essentially the same as 'alt text', and is it recognized by search engine as such?

4)Is there a way to create title/name for text that was created with the 'title' object?

5) Can a mouse over be used to create an 'enlarge image' effect? If this can be done can you give a little info as to how. I looked at it for bit but couldn't see a way to do it.

6) When using a graphic object for a link, does using the 'title/name' of link look the same to search engines as a text link would?

7) Can the form 'dropdown box' be used for menu navigation? I played with it for while but couldn't find a way to link to the text I put in the dropdown.

I hope it's OK to post all these questions together, I didn't want to create a thread for each.

1. There is nothing wrong with resizing your images within SiteSpinner. If you let SS re-render the images, a smaller version of the original will be published.

2. Most image file formats support their own compression schemes (BMP and TIFF to not compress their files). JPG can give you the greatest compression, but the greater the compression, the lower the quality. GIF gives you the least compression but is suitable with images with fewer than 256 colors and gray-scale. PNG gives good compression while maintaining the image's original quality.

3. The "alt" text is designed to be displayed when the image cannot be placed in the browser (i.e., an "alternate" to the displayed image). The "title" text is designed to be displayed as a tool-tip when the mouse hovers over the image. With SS, the entered title text is always applied to the image's alt attribute; the same text is applied to both the alt and title attributes when the image is made into a link. If you want to give a more descriptive name to your image for search engine purposes, put the descriptive text in the title box.

4. Since the title object is rendered as an image and is thus unreadable by a search bot, you can enter the equivalent text in the title box via the Object Editor or Quick Edit Link tab. This text will be seen by the search bot.

5. Yes, see this thread.

6. If you mean the actual link, then yes, they will look the same, with the exception that the clickable object will be an object vs text.

7. Yes, see here under "Form Select List Nav Menu"

This message has been edited. Last edited by: larryd,

Thanks larry for the thorough response.

Just a couple follow ups. Maybe I wasn't clear but my question about image compression was when I insert an image with the Mona Lisa icon does that image automatically compress. I see there is a default setting for compression? and is set to 75. Is the compression automatic or is there something else I have to do. I normally compress images via Irfanview before uploading them but if SS does it upon insertion I will lose image quality if I compress beforehand. I normally use JPG for most of my images.

Am I to understand by using the mouse over for 'click to enlarge' image that this will create a larger page file than the 'pop up full size' tool?

I checked out your site and the 'form select list nav menu' section. The instructions there appear to be for linking to outside pages. Is there a way to use the drop down for internal linking/linking to pages within my site? I'm using SiteSpinner.

Also, how do I go about determining the page file size of my site pages. I'm on slow dial up and need to keep my pages as small as possible.

Thanks for your help

The compression setting available in SS apply only to JPG files. Normally, a JPG image is compressed to 75%-85% quality. I would not set it below 75% since a lower number would result it a loss of image quality. But again, this is only effective if you are re-rendering your images in JPG format.

If you are resizing your images in IrfanView, then importing them into SS and not making any changes to them, then they will not be altered by SS; i.e., what you produce in IrfanView is what will be published by SS without any additional alteration. Make sure the Project Option Default Image Format setting is set to "Use Picture's Format".

The SS image pop-up will display the image in a new window at its original dimensions. The SS tool expects you to use SS to create a thumbnail rather doing it externally. This way SS will publish the original image but use a smaller image container and resize the image dynamically via HTML settings. This way the same image is used for both the thumbnail and pop-up display. If you resize the image in IrfanView to a thumbnail and instruct SS to pop-up the image, then the thumbnail will be displayed again (at thumbnail size) and not the original image.

To use the form select list for local pages, just change the value to the name of your local page; e.g., about.html or index.html. You could also use the full URL of your site (e.g., http://mydomain.com/about.html) and your server will automatically convert it to a local page reference.

The best way to determine the overall size of your site pages is to publish locally to disk, then use Windows File Explorer to check the size of the produced folder/files.

Thank you larry, great response and easy to understand. I appreciate your time, this info will help me a lot.

Thanks again