Slideshow speed

delenca

Hi,

Every once in a while I do a tour of the photo sharing sites to see what improvements have been made.

First time back for a trial at Smugmug in ~2 years. It's looking good! I see improvements in loading speed (of main page) and quality of rendering seems good too. Good job. (and the page layout/themes look snazzy as ever...)

The slideshow in particular seems to have really improved. It looks fantastic. I like the full screen mode and the captions at the bottom.

However, I am disappointed by the speed of loading the photos. I have an average DSL connection and the pictures take just a little too long to load for my preference. I end up spending most of my time staring at the "progress meter" right in the middle of the photo. Is there no "auto-ahead" loading going on?

A second question. What control do I have over the captions? Is there a way to set it up to show both Filename AND Description?
I prefer my captions to look like this:
Filename (minus the .jpg extension)
Description/Caption

Also, is there a way to adjust font size, etc?

Thanks,
-Alex

delenca

delenca wrote:

However, I am disappointed by the speed of loading the photos. I have an average DSL connection and the pictures take just a little too long to load for my preference. I end up spending most of my time staring at the "progress meter" right in the middle of the photo. Is there no "auto-ahead" loading going on?

No comment on this issue? Is there no way to increase the loading speed of pictures in the Flash slideshow? (i.e. pre-fetching??).

It looks great (especially that it fills the screen - and the captions below) but it's so slow I fear it really won't get much use.

Interest in any comment.
-Alex

Andy

Hi, we're moving the progress meter - by request - it'll be soon
The speed of pre-loading, well now, that's entirely dependent on your connection to us, and the size images being loaded. For example, on my normal cable connection at home, on a 30" monitor delivering X3 size images, I have no delay - but my ISP is really, really fast.

If you'd like us to give you some diagnostics, for speed checking and such, we can, just let us know.

delenca

Andy wrote:

Hi, we're moving the progress meter - by request - it'll be soon
The speed of pre-loading, well now, that's entirely dependent on your connection to us, and the size images being loaded. For example, on my normal cable connection at home, on a 30" monitor delivering X3 size images, I have no delay - but my ISP is really, really fast.

If you'd like us to give you some diagnostics, for speed checking and such, we can, just let us know.

Along with moving the progress meter, I had a couple of other suggestions:

1) Allow the user to advance slideshow using keyboard arrow keys. Not only would that be expected behavior (consistent with lightbox, i.e.) but it makes for a better user experience; every time I move the mouse to advance the picture, the thumnails pop up, etc - it's distracting (though I don't want to turn off altogether).

2) Pre-load picture N+1 while viewer is looking at picture N. This is obvious. It's a safe assumption that if someone clicked on slideshow they are very likely to look at the next picture in the series.

As for speed, I'll try to get specs from the university connection and report back (fast connection).

Cheers,
-Alex

papajay

delenca wrote:

Along with moving the progress meter, I had a couple of other suggestions:

1) Allow the user to advance slideshow using keyboard arrow keys. Not only would that be expected behavior (consistent with lightbox, i.e.) but it makes for a better user experience; every time I move the mouse to advance the picture, the thumnails pop up, etc - it's distracting (though I don't want to turn off altogether).

...

Cheers,
-Alex

I "second" that suggestion and the conment about the current annoyance of having the filmstrip of thumbs pop up every time I manually advance the slide show with a mouse-click.

Further suggestion...along with using the keyboard arrows keys, can you provide a "pause" key (would assigning the "down arrow" key break any established rules?) instead of , or in addition to, the current method that involves a mouse-click dead center in an otherwise attractive, full-screen photo?

cabinetbuff

papajay wrote:

Further suggestion...along with using the keyboard arrows keys, can you provide a "pause" key (would assigning the "down arrow" key break any established rules?) instead of , or in addition to, the current method that involves a mouse-click dead center in an otherwise attractive, full-screen photo?

I second "mouse-less" navigation using keyboard Arrows ( <- -> ).

And in regards to the "pause" key -- typically it's done using the space-bar, it's very "natural" -- your left hand's thumb already rests on the space bar key most of the times.

Shizam

I third keyboard navigation, however it can't be done because of 'helpful' security features built into Flash <img src="https://us.v-cdn.net/6029383/emoji/deal.gif&quot; border="0" alt="" >

While in fullscreen mode all keyboard navigation is cutoff except the use of the escape key to leave fullscreen, there is no way around this. And while it'd be nice to have keyboard navigation while its not in fullscreen mode this would cause confusion and complaints once the slideshow goes fullscreen and they keyboard commands no longer work. So sadly the only senseable solution is to have no keyboard navigation.

Sam

cabinetbuff wrote:

I second "mouse-less" navigation using keyboard Arrows ( <- -> ).

And in regards to the "pause" key -- typically it's done using the space-bar, it's very "natural" -- your left hand's thumb already rests on the space bar key most of the times.

jfriend

Shizam wrote:

I third keyboard navigation, however it can't be done because of 'helpful' security features built into Flash

While in fullscreen mode all keyboard navigation is cutoff except the use of the escape key to leave fullscreen, there is no way around this. And while it'd be nice to have keyboard navigation while its not in fullscreen mode this would cause confusion and complaints once the slideshow goes fullscreen and they keyboard commands no longer work. So sadly the only senseable solution is to have no keyboard navigation.

Sam

Shizam, this article says that starting with Flash 10, Adobe offers full-screen mode access to non-printing keystrokes such as arrow keys, space bar, tab, etc... specifically for the purposes we are asking about (navigation). And, it's described here in Adobe's description of what's new in Flash 10.

It sounds like it would be doable in Flash 10.

cabinetbuff

Shizam wrote:

I third keyboard navigation, however it can't be done because of 'helpful' security features built into Flash

... So sadly the only senseable solution is to have no keyboard navigation.

Sam

The other sensible solution is to use javascript instead of Flash

mouse is "evil"

Shizam

I actually do pre-fetch images, I try to stay 6 images ahead of whatever image you're on and if you click way ahead I drop all the previous requests and start pre-fetching again from the new point. The speed really is 95% limited only by the speed of your connection and the size of the images you're requesting. I say 95% because there are a few tricks/caveates to improve speed.

If you have a giant monitor (I have 30" monitors) then in fullscreen mode you're going to be requesting 2500x1600 images and I've seen these be 1-1.5MB coming across the wire. If you're on 'average' DSL/Cable/whatever and you're max download speed is 150-200k/s and you're clicking through images or set the speed to fast it'll take you 5-8 seconds to download the full image but you're cruising along at 2 images/second...

Ways to mitigate the problem:
-(sucky) Set a max image size. If you set the max size to L or XL then even if the monitor is giant the smaller images will cache up faster. The downside is its not really fullscreen anymore if you have a large display.

-(fine) Don't blow through the show (for the above reasons) unless you have a fast connection.

-(good) Due to a pile of factors I won't go into if the images in said gallery have an original size of 2500x1600 (on either side) AND you have a large monitor you CAN notice a speed increase. But know that this will only improve speed for < 0.1% of people because both they would need a large monitor AND your originals would need to be massive (22MP).

But again, speed is the fix.

Sam

delenca wrote:

No comment on this issue? Is there no way to increase the loading speed of pictures in the Flash slideshow? (i.e. pre-fetching??).

It looks great (especially that it fills the screen - and the captions below) but it's so slow I fear it really won't get much use.

Interest in any comment.
-Alex

Shizam

cabinetbuff wrote:

The other sensible solution is to use javascript instead of Flash

mouse is "evil"

Sure, if you like sucky transitions (try crossfading two large bitmaps) and fake fullscreen (all you can do is maximize the browser). I'll give up keyboard navigation for that

Sam

Shizam

jfriend wrote:

Shizam, this article says that starting with Flash 10, Adobe offers full-screen mode access to non-printing keystrokes such as arrow keys, space bar, tab, etc... specifically for the purposes we are asking about (navigation). And, it's described here in Adobe's description of what's new in Flash 10.

It sounds like it would be doable in Flash 10.

Yes,
I yearn for higher penetration numbers on 10. Some of the text stuff they do would be really helpful in the card editor.

Sam

jfriend

Shizam wrote:

Yes,
I yearn for higher penetration numbers on 10.

Sam

Can't you write it in a way that keyboard nav works if the user has 10, but offers what we have today with 9? According to the December 2008 stats, version 10 is already at 55%.

cabinetbuff

Shizam wrote:

Sure, if you like sucky transitions (try crossfading two large bitmaps) and fake fullscreen (all you can do is maximize the browser). I'll give up keyboard navigation for that

Sam

I guess "To Each His Own". Personally, I don't even use SM slideshow, specifically because I can't navigate it without using a mouse. I'll take browser view in a lightbox type setting over full-screen mouse-nav-only any day.

And as far as transitions go -- I am sure you'll find something suitable here ...

Shizam

jfriend wrote:

Can't you write it in a way that keyboard nav works if the user has 10, but offers what we have today with 9?

Yes but that'd create a different user experience depending on what computer you're on which ends in complaints to the support desk.

Shizwizzle

Shizam

cabinetbuff wrote:

I guess "To Each His Own". Personally, I don't even use SM slideshow, specifically because I can't navigate it without using a mouse. I'll take browser view in a lightbox type setting over full-screen mouse-nav-only any day.

And as far as transitions go -- I am sure you'll find something suitable here ...

Yup,
whichever way you go you're going to compromise something.

Sam

jfriend

Shizam wrote:

Yes but that'd create a different user experience depending on what computer you're on which ends in complaints to the support desk.

Shizwizzle

Now you are just looking for excuses. It is very common to offer forward support for new features. You get a new feature if you have the latest version, you don't if you don't. Everyone understands that.

If you're letting the help desk hold back useful advances in functionality while waiting for 99.99% penetration of Flash 10, I'm really disappointed. Particularly for a feature like this that is completely an optional enhancement. The current experience doesn't change at all if you have old flash, but if you have new flash you get a new feature. That's done all the time. To be a slave to the help desk in this case is just wrong and it's a crummy philosophy to apply to this particular issue. I'd be happy to argue it with Andy if you want (he loves to argue with me ).

Yes, maybe it's not worth it if the new feature only reaches 10% of the audience, but Flash 10 adoption has gone from 0% to 55% in 6 months. Adoption is really pretty darn fast and it already reaches more than 50% of the viewing audience.

And, don't you already need Flash 10 anyway for H.264 for video?

delenca

Shizam wrote:

I actually do pre-fetch images, I try to stay 6 images ahead of whatever image you're on and if you click way ahead I drop all the previous requests and start pre-fetching again from the new point.
(...)
Sam

Hi Sam,

Thanks for the great, detailed answer. Very gratified to hear you are doing this right (pre-fetching).

I understand why a slow connection would behave as it did but I thought something else was going on and and I am trying to diagnose it right now (I am at a very fast connection right now). Right now it seems that it's zooming through the pics, but I want to make sure I clear the cache completely for a fair test. I used the Flash Settings Manager (http://www.macromedia.com/support/documentation/en/flashplayer/help/settings_manager03.html) but I am not 100% sure that was the way to do it.
I am going to speed test at a bunch of different computers at different locations until I am satisfied I understand its behavior.

Also, I agree it's sucky to disable the full screen display. That's the most awesome part of it!!

Also happy to hear Flash 10 would allow for keyboard shortcuts. I think once you have the time to add it, it will be an almost essential feature (most users expect it to work - and, if anything, they'll think the slideshow is responding slowly to their keyboard shortcuts because they don't realize the slideshow is going on on its own!).

Cheers, keep up the great work.
-Alex

WinsomeWorks

Could we implement arrow key usage in full-screen Flash slideshows?
Ok, I got led over here through another thread which I was wrongly whining on. So-- I just wanna add my voice/vote to "let's do this"-- if someone's able! Can we? I don't know any of the tech stuff behind it, but I read a bunch of this article that John pointed out, and it sure appears that we could be using arrow keys, even in full-screen slideshows... and probably could have been for over a year. Adobe Flash 10 says it has this capability. As I said in the other thread, slideshows all over the web, which I believe are flash, are capable of using them. About the only game I play is Ms Pac-Man, but it's a full-screen flash version, and all I ever use is arrow keys. It's one of those things people have been asking about for a long time... I'm not going to start a UserVoice thing for it because that seems a bit ridiculous when it's only about "can we" or "can't we", not "should we?"