Thread: Lightbox & Loading Time

I am re-building my art site with BV & am thinking of putting my photos in a series of light boxes; with the details & prices of the paintings between series of boxes. I am wondering with page loading times how many light boxes to put on a page. Any opinion?

I have only just discovered the gallery feature. Would there be any advantages of using that? As paintings can be different shapes it seems best not to make the thumbs all the same size. It appears to me that is what the gallery does, am I correct? With the light box feature photos do come up different shapes which seems to give a more realstic idea of what ones are buying. (that feature of my current site really annoys my husband.) Any advise would be helpfu.

Hi, this is only a personal view & I only have a 1.5 meg connection But I think a thumbnail with a simple pop up image gives the best result, it also enables a fast loading page. Royb got a nice result on this page http://www.pluspic.plusplace.co.uk/graphics.html with many images. He brought it down from well over 2 meg using the light box, to only a few hundred kb using this style with the code below. Just means uploading the main image to the server & using the code below, which you can adjust the size for each image.
I would suggest going about 20px above the main image size on the width & height. The only reason for this way, is that you have far more control over the size of your thumbnails & loading times of your pages.
All of the above is assuming you want the main pop up to be of best quality.

“#" onClick="window.open('http://www.yoursite.com/your-large-image.jpg', '','scrollbars=0,width=300,height=200,left=250,top =150'); return false;"

Hi Vicki,

My preference is for the Lightbox due to its features.

You do not need to install thumbs but instead the actual size you want the viewer to view your artwork. As you populate your album LB automatically produces thumbs which can be manually resized which saves a lot of work.

You have to test out with your IE or default browser the speed the pages loads your photos for viewing and thus you can come to a conclusion as to the best suitable size for your needs. If U ask everybody what their own preferences are, U may not get the right answer. But always remember they are not selling Artwork, maybe thumb sizes are sufficient for their needs.

My policy is to use my own preferences first and what I want and how my
pages should display. How to protect your artwork is a secondary issue [which is important in your line] but dont confuse yourself and jumble everything in one basket. By doing so U can concentrate on producing the best albums and webpages for your gallery.

As for protection there are softwares in the market that can ensure the safety of your artwork to prevent everything that U are worried about being done to your artwork.

A customer's interest can be stimulated by a large enough piece of your artwork. If the piece is too small too appreciate he may just go away.

I have designed more than 20 albums for my galleries, orchids, stamps, familytree albums all using the light box as the centerpiece.

There should be only one album per page.
If your images are large, reduce the number of images and instead increase the number of pages and reverse the order for smaller images.
U should not be guided by fixed numbers or generalization of fixed values.

U could also have a landing page for as many albums as U can fit in with links to the actual album.

I do not like the the Photo gallery simply because it just pops up and aligned itself to the top left hand corner of your page. It has no finesse for presentation while the LB is like a show on stage, the background lights dim and the center stage lights up and U visualize your beautiful Art on center stage.

Try to avoid pop ups as all the browsers are installed with a pop up blocker. That itself is indicative of how may people in the world dislike pop ups because of the advertising messages it is generally used for.

My advice to U is to experiment and test your creation in the browser over and over again until you are satisfied that is really what U want and not What others advised U to do.

Hi Zuriatman,

It is good to meet other people who appreciate orchids.

Originally Posted by pioneerVicki

I am re-building my art site with BV & am thinking of putting my photos in a series of light boxes; with the details & prices of the paintings between series of boxes. I am wondering with page loading times how many light boxes to put on a page. Any opinion?

I have only just discovered the gallery feature. Would there be any advantages of using that? As paintings can be different shapes it seems best not to make the thumbs all the same size. It appears to me that is what the gallery does, am I correct? With the light box feature photos do come up different shapes which seems to give a more realstic idea of what ones are buying. (that feature of my current site really annoys my husband.) Any advise would be helpfu.

Hi
This is just a friendly tip.
Why not try the JAlbum? I am using it with a skin called mamba.
It is far better then the Lightbox and Coppermine and there you can choose many different skins.
Some skins is packed with fetures including premade chart button.
JAlbum is loading up much quicker then the lightbox to.
Here is the link: http://jalbum.net/
I hope you`ll find that you looking for.

Hi Rob [SA]

Nice meeting U too. I have been growing them for 30 years.

I use both features - gallery and lightbox - depending on where. I use the gallery feature more for my products - and it does NOT size all the thumbnails the same - as it does the sizing based on the size the picture is.

I suggest you spend a little time playing with both and publishing to a test page - see how they work. No one can tell you which will work best for your application but you.