pinkstarsunshine Posted December 15, 2003 Share Posted December 15, 2003 Hiya. I'm about to open up my shop soon. I would like to know how loading time is on other computers. This is my first time with oscommerce, anyone have any tips or suggestions? http://pinkstarsunshine.net/dreamshop Thanks ;) Tamara Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TerryK Posted December 16, 2003 Share Posted December 16, 2003 Hi Tamara, A quick couple of things: 1. I like the colors (am somewhat partial to purple, so that might explain it) :) I like the rainbow and castle at the top as well, but on my 800x600 resolution, have to scroll horizontally to see the full window. 2. Your images download VERY slowly. I've been on the 'Beaded Jewelry' category page for a couple of minutes and it still isn't done. (I'm on dialup, not cable connection.) 3. Am not too fond of your category icons for Bracelets, Earrings, etc. in the Beaded Jewelry product listing page. The red heart accents just don't seem to fit in with the pastel-ish theme of the site, so kind of jump out at me, but not in an embracing way. 4. You absolutely need to optimize your images!! Save them as JPGs instead of GIFs with low resolution and you could probably get them down to 10-12K each instead of the 90-100+K they are now. You could save even more download time if you make thumbnail and regular sized pics of both and use a mod like Big Images to allow for two photos. (I believe there are other helper app's that will automatically generate the thumbnails -- I already had mine created, so didn't need that.) Anyway, that's a start for you -- hope it helps! Best wishes for a successful site! TerryK Terry Kluytmans Contribs Installed: Purchase Without Account (PWA); Big Images, Product Availability, Description in Product Listing, Graphical Infobox, Header Tags Controller, Login Box, Option Type Feature, plus many layout changes & other mods of my own, like: Add order total to checkout_shipment Add order total to checkout_payment Add radio buttons at checkout_shipping (for backorder options, etc.) Duplicate Table Rate Shipping Module Better Product Review Flow * If at first you don't succeed, find out if there's a prize for the loser. * Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gaia Posted December 16, 2003 Share Posted December 16, 2003 At this point in time, there's a hotlink configuration error in your server. Every image gives the "direct linking" not allowed error, making for a rather messy view. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pinkstarsunshine Posted December 16, 2003 Author Share Posted December 16, 2003 Thank you for your suggestions terryk. I think will go and try all of your suggestions for the thumbnails, icons, etc..! Ahhh, yes on my sites some people see that no direct linking image sometimes but i never see it :( i better go change my hotlink settings now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WendyM Posted December 16, 2003 Share Posted December 16, 2003 I use Irfanview to reduce my images. It's free. I open a picture crop/cut if I need to click to "save as" when new window opens(to save it) there is a button called "options" click "options" window opens that lets you choose the quality percentage (mine is set to halfway between the 80 and best) then click "ok" now just make sure you save it in JPG form This should help to reduce the size without making the picture ugly. Here is the link: http://www.irfanview.com/ Sure hope this helps. And much success to ya! Wendy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pinkstarsunshine Posted December 16, 2003 Author Share Posted December 16, 2003 Wendy- Thanks a bunch, I was looking for something like this. I am using irfan now and it's great, it doesnt make the images look fuzzy like paint shop pro does :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gaia Posted December 17, 2003 Share Posted December 17, 2003 Your images are showing for me now. The site looks very nice aside from the things mentioned before. Now that you have the ability for changing your images from gif files to much better compressed jpeg files, I'll suggest to you to go to the contribution section of the osC site and search the images area for thumbnail. This will give you a list of thumbnail contributions which will help you out quite a bit in load times. The contribution I went with was the Automatic Thumbnail Creator v1.0, which is a very nice contribution (if you have the setup to be able to use it). Another thing that might be worth mentioning is the background color of the item pictures. The off-white doesn't really work with the site's purple motif. My suggestion would be to look around for a purple cloth (or somewhere between purple-red or purple-blue or whatever color looks good with your background color) to use as a backdrop for your pictures. Any cloth will do, so long as it's large enough, even a table cloth or pillowcase. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kinetek Posted December 17, 2003 Share Posted December 17, 2003 may i suggest making your whole site layout match your header? the header image is great and i get disappointed that the rest of the site is just the osc format with different colors. i see tons of potential here. also, the text above the "my account", "checkout", and "view cart" castles are a bit small. it's hard to read from a comfortable distance although they are cute. maybe make the castles different colors to different them as well? oh, and i'm on dsl and it loaded really quick. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pinkstarsunshine Posted December 17, 2003 Author Share Posted December 17, 2003 Thanks Gaia.. I tried that contribution and lost most of my index page nothing was loading except for the catergories so I changed it back to the orinigal output_html. I thought that would be a great idea also (about a different cloth under the items) but unfortunatly I don't have anything light in color that would look like nice. If I ever find a nice fabric, I will change it. kinetek... Thanks, the reason I chose oscommerce was because i like osc layout in general. I do not want to change the look of the layout, because that is the look i wanted, and I think it's fits nice. I think the osc layout fits into mine and what I'm looking for, so I do not plan to make any modifications on that part. I love how the new products are displayed and the whats new box, the shopping cart is easy viewable and I just like the 3 columns :) I just opened the shop so that is it for the changes! Thank you so much to everyone who has helped me on this board, and gave me suggestions on this topic :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kinetek Posted December 17, 2003 Share Posted December 17, 2003 sorry if i confused you, but what i was suggesting was maybe making the boxes have the same pixel art look to them. good luck on your store! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pinkstarsunshine Posted December 17, 2003 Author Share Posted December 17, 2003 Ahhh great idea!!! Thanks!! :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mikes Posted December 18, 2003 Share Posted December 18, 2003 I don't particularly care for the color scheme or graphics but then I'm not part of your target audience either. :) It is a fairly standard install and like most has too many infoboxes for my taste. I think if you remove the ones you can, move the rest to the left column and get rid of the right column all together it would improve the overall look. I always design for 800x600 unless the target audience is very predominently 1024x768 and even then I ensure that it looks reasonably ok at 800x600. Otherwise, you risk loosing customers. Your logo is so wide that it causes a large scrollbar and puts three buttons completely off the screen. Animated gifs are always a big nono. They look unprofessional except in very unique situations. In many cases, I feel the same about flash and dhtml but there are many more uses for them that are appropriate. The buynow button has a white background that shows up on every other item (the ones with the blue background). Make it a transparent gif and it will fix the problem. Very good size for the images and the big images as well. Shows off the products nicely. Product detail shows when the product was added to the catalog. Most customers won't be interested in this so it wouldn't hurt to take it out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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