Please Help Test!

[fwhilton]

I have done an upgrade to my interface.

Could anyone please look at the beta test any comment on it?
Address is below..

What I am looking for...
• What browser
• How fast did pages load
• Especially the 'main menu' popup. how fast was it.
• How does it look when the broswer is resized?
• What speed connection is being used?
• How is the navigation

Most links work, but not all content is up yet.
I tried to load and then unload the menu when the intro started. But I am not sure it gets loaded.

I wish there was a way to load a movie but not display it?

Any comments welcomed!

go to: http://www.fwhilton.com/flash/home.html

p.s. your response will determine if I use KM (flash) over my exsisting real web pages

Thanks

[evolbeagle]

I didn't check all of the links, but it looks pretty nifty to me. Loaded quickly and seemed to work well in IE 5.5, NS 4 and Opera 5.

[johnie]

Tested in IE 5.5-

Looked Fine after it was resized (hard to read the page if the page is shrunk down- potential problem for people who run banner ads either through a free ISP or through a rewards program). Loaded instanantly (But I am on a Lan that is connected to a T1 Line so everything except Flash Kit and a couple of other sites load instantly).

I put it through Website garage and this is the estimated load times-

14.4K 151.28 seconds
28.8K 81.28 seconds
33.6K 69.04 seconds
56K 53.10 seconds
ISDN 128K 16.56 seconds
T1 1.44Mbps 1.92 seconds


This is of coarse misleading since it also included the time to load the Flash Plug-In if not installed. So if someone without a current Flash plug-in tries to read your page those times reflect both the time for the update of the plug-in and reading your page.

You don't have a Non Flash Gif on your server- You may want to place it on there.

It claims also that people with NS 4.0 or IE 3.0 and lower will have problems with the page (I wouldn't worry about that though- if they are still using IE 3.0 or NS 4.0 then they probably won't have flash either- both browsers are over 3 years old... Website Garage needs to update to 4'th- IE 4.0 or higher and NS 4.5 or higher- generation browsers as the rest of the world is using 5'th- IE 5.0-5.5/ Mozilla AKA NS 5- and 6'th generation browsers- IE 6 / NS 6/ and Amayou which implement XHTML- which is why NS6 is so picky about code.)

If you do swich to the Flash pages you may want to add meta tags so that the search engines can refrence your page.

I like how you have the notice to push the main menu button for navigation- it eliminates the mystery meat element from the navigation.

[fwhilton]

Johnnie..

I chose to go with a resizable interface for those who use 1024x?? and greater. If I left the interface to a standard fixed with then animated movies may not show through the whole screen. I am hoping that those that have banners etc.. will utilize there "Full Screen" modes in IE and NAV.

I am also trying to make text at least 14pt and bigger to try an adjust to smaller screens.

I guess I can't please everyone. :)

I know I didn't put the 'noflash.gif' yet. If I put this into production I will then.

I will be adding the metatags later.

Thanks for your imput!

[ShaunLeahy]

I like it - Loaded in about 20 secs. IE5 44k UK.
menu works well enough - like the pointy sign.
didn't check all links but pages I tried loaded quickly enough.

[johnie]

I never said I didn't like it. In fact I like the page a lot...

The resizable interface is fine- I would just kick the text size up a notch or two and remeber that in any vector format the text size (Or any thing at all in it except images) are not pixel perfect- they are all sized realitivly (Flash Designers forgeting this is a personal petpeeve of mine/ that and mystery meat naviagtion, which seems so popular now days, just burns me up).

The exeception of scalibility being images which are bitmapped and they are not realitive (Any JPG's, PXT, BMP, PNG, TIF that you bring into your work are bitmap or raster images- bitmaps are useful in a lot of cases but just remeber they don't scale up well at all and scaling down can be a problem if you go to far with it) but are pixel perfect. Raster Images can cut down on the size of your SWF (The Flash format ,and SVG for that matter, allow raster images to be placed within them. The Images are not converted but are placed inside of the SWF File. Flash itself even in its early developement -I'm talking Future Spalsh time was a combination raster/vector drawing tool which adds to the learning curve considering that the raster tools inside of Flash are not very good even at the Flash 5 level.) if you are using complex detail. If I had to do a texture of somthing and wanted minute detail I would not use a vector format but rather I would opt out for a raster image instead becuasde it would be much smaller.

Keep this in Mind:

Anytime you want to use a photograph (detial) quality image and its not crucial to scale it use a raster image. Anytime you want to use a drawing or a graphic or scalability is rweally important use a vector Image but also keep in mind that a very complex image (Like a photograph) will loose its size advantage over a raster image.

All in all the site looks clean and profesional.


I like it.

[fwhilton]

Hey Johnnie...

I wasn't saying what I was saying about 'pleasing everyone' towards you! I meant people that use web sites in general.

You know I appreciate your input!

:)

Thanks

[fwhilton]

Shaun,
Thanks for checking the site out!

It took 20sec to load?

That seems to slow for me. I assume you mean 44k modem speed?

Originally posted by ShaunLeahy
I like it - Loaded in about 20 secs. IE5 44k UK.
menu works well enough - like the pointy sign.
didn't check all links but pages I tried loaded quickly enough.

[ShaunLeahy]

I wouldn't worry about the speed, I'm at home using an old machine (P133). Also it was about 18:30Uk when I tried which is a busy time because all the 'no phone call charges during off-peak hours' services begin here and all the kids are online playing games.

I cleared my cache and tried again and made 12 seconds to the start of the introduction.

I like to use an old machine to test my stuff on as a lot of small business that I work for have dated hardware. Besides I can't yet persuade my wife that we have a need for 2 good machines.

I'll try it at the office next week and let you know.

the 44k modem speed is what I'm getting from windows status box which I've heard can be vastly inaccurate. Is there somewhere online or a piece of freeware I can get to give me an accurate reading?