Avatars on RootsChatThose of us who use broadband tend to forget how many people there are, who still use slow dial-up connections.
So anything that speeds up page downloads is an improvement. Even on Broadband !
When we call up a page in the browser (i.e. click on a link) then the page, text and graphics, is downloaded to our computer, whereby "graphics" includes avatars, smileys (both in the text and in the signatur), and images attatched to the text
1) On 15 replies to a topic (maximum replies per page), up to 15 profile pics are downloaded.
(that's the worst case: if it's just two people, answering back and forth, then only two profile pics get downloaded)
I downloaded two RootsChat pages, one with just one avatar (profile pic) and one with 10:
The text part of each page was about 100 KB
The graphics part of the 1st. page was 60 KB
The graphics part of the 2nd. page was 250 KB
Doing the maths, nearly 200 KB of the 2nd. page was taken up with avatars and smileys.
Most people have an avatar/profile pic of
10 KB or less, which is reasonable,
but I have noticed some bigger avatars, some even going to 150 KB.
To improve performance, RootsChat Administration has now decided to limit the sizes of the avatars.The maximum Byte-size allowed is 20 KB.
The maximum pixel size is width: 150 pixels, Height: 150 pixels[/b].
We ask you in the course of the next two weeks to check that your avatars are within the specified limits.
If you are not sure of your avatar size, then right-click on it.
In the context menu which then appears, left-click on properties.
A pop-up window will tell you the size, in pixels and Kilobytes (KB)
TIP: There are quite a few avatars which are within the pixel limits, but well over 20KB.
Admin has been converting some of these from
PNG format to
JPG format (80% compression).
It makes a surprising difference:
in general the same picture in JPG is 10 - 20% of the PNG size !A 34KB image can reduce to 4 - 6KB, presumably depending on the colours and contrasts.
After
1st. November 2007, admin will gradually resize any avatars, that exceed these dimensions.
In the case of animated GIFs, resizing won't work,
so if they are over the limits, we will have to delete them.
Avatars can now only be loaded from RootsChat. Loading an avatar from another server often means waiting until that server has sent us the image.
All avatars from external sources need to be reloaded.Most avatars have "survived" the implementation of the new restrictions, but not all, so you may have to reload your avatar.
Please remember that use of avatar images is also subject to the usual copyright rules.There are also restrictions on images in
signatures.
The max. allowed size is 500 Bytes (Profile:
Research names or areas:).
The text size is automatically checked when you enter it in your profile.
If you include
an image in your signature,
please insure that the
total size (= image + text) does not exceed
500 Bytes.
Images in signatures, which exceed the size limits, will be removed.
Thank you,
The RootsChat Team.
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For help with resizing images,
see Topic: Adding images to Posting & Profiles
1) Resizing and cropping your image file:[/color]
http://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php/topic,130922.0.html