Cosmetic defect on many Smugmug sites

jfriend

When using Firefox 3.6 and viewing the http://www.moonriverphotography.com site and many, many other sites, there is a visible artifact when the site loads. It's a flash of a white box, usually near the lower left of the window. It shows briefly and then goes away (perhaps 1/4 second or something like that). I don't see the flash in IE or Safari, but I always see it in Firefox. I only see it on some sites. I always see it on the moonriver site and I've seen it recently on dozens of other Smugmug sites so I don't think it's specific to any particular customization.

I believe the issue is caused by the cookieMonsterIframe object which is something that is injected into many/all sites (you can see it nearly the end of View/Source of the moonriver homepage).

I think a work-around to make the flash not show is to add this CSS:

#cookieMonsterIframe{visibility: hidden;}

This particular object is added to the page with this code:

YAHOO.util.Event.onDOMReady(function() {
    var body= document.getElementsByTagName('body')[0];
    var iframe = document.createElement('iframe');
    iframe.id = 'cookieMonsterIframe';
    iframe.src = 'http://www.smugmug.com/include/js/cookiemonster.mg?returnTo=http://www.moonriverphotography.com';
    body.appendChild(iframe);
    YAHOO.util.Dom.addClass('cookieMonsterIframe','yui-hidden');
});

I wonder if the problem is that the "yui-hidden" class is added right after it's appended into the document rather than before so there can be a brief moment when it's visible.

I don't have this code in my site, so I'm wondering if this code is only injected into the page for custom domains.

I've seen this on many sites and many different pages. For example, it seems particularly visible on this page in a different site:

http://www.tonyandjason.com/Other/Guestbook/15735642_jGeFq#1179587371_wbaGb

FWIW, I think this issue has been here for a long time as I've seen it occasionally for a long time. It doesn't happen on my site and I just never bothered to try to figure out what it was before now. I suspect the visibility of the issue depends on browser implementation and timing of redraws when objects are added to the page. Perhaps it's worse in the latest version of Firefox.

jfriend

Bump. Does anyone care that there's a flashing white box on every Smugmug site with a custom domain on it?

It's trivial to reproduce and see. I've given you examples, including Andy's own site.

docwalker

John,

Yes I do care but I was off yesterday and did not get a chance to reply. I am not seeing this flash that you describe on Andy's or the other site you mention using FF. Andy has also sent this to the programmer so that they can take a look.

--Doc

jfriend

docwalker wrote: »

John,

Yes I do care but I was off yesterday and did not get a chance to reply. I am not seeing this flash that you describe on Andy's or the other site you mention using FF. Andy has also sent this to the programmer so that they can take a look.

--Doc

Doc, can you still not see it? I see it on hundreds of Smugmug sites and the fix is trivial.

RogersDA

It's been an issue for a long time.

http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=161501

jfriend

RogersDA wrote: »

It's been an issue for a long time.

http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=161501

Yep - I posted a similar analysis in that thread too. Apparently, nobody at Smugmug sees it (probably because they all use Macs) or I assume they'd be all over fixing it (especially since it's a one line fix) because it's a real boober of a cosmetic defect (though transient) on a site who's purpose is to look great.

Andy

jfriend wrote: »

(probably because they all use Macs)

Haha. We love our Macs. But we have a big viewership that uses windows so we all have it. I run Windows 7 & IE8, Windows 7 & IE9, Windows Vista and IE7, and Windows XP & IE6. Of course each of those installs has also Firefox and Chrome and even Safari browsers on them as well.

Andy

I've tried on my site (shift-reloaded a dozen times!) and can't see what you're describing (using Win7 and FF). Can you give me some sites that you see it on?

jfriend

Andy wrote: »

I've tried on my site (shift-reloaded a dozen times!) and can't see what you're describing (using Win7 and FF). Can you give me some sites that you see it on?

I think it happens only on custom domains. I linked another site in my first post here. I've seen it in hundreds of sites. We discussed the same issue 8 months ago. There's no reason for you to knock yourself out trying to reproduce it. The problem exists. Lots of us see it. The fix is trivial.

If one of your sorcerers just looks at my first post here, they will see that the code is just being dumb and the object should be made invisible BEFORE it's added to the DOM, not after. The way it is now, there is a window of opportunity for it to be momentarily visible (depends upon browser implementation). If the site has a dark background, it can show briefly as a white outline of a square (won't be seen on a white background).

Andy, you really don't have to waste time trying to reproduce this. If I had an easy way to capture a video of a page loading, I'd do that and show you because it happens every time on many sites, but I don't have a tool for that. Just have a sorcerer make the one line fix.

FYI, I see the flash every time on your site. Slow your computer down and slow your network connection down and you're probably more likely to see it. I tend to see it more visibly when BackBlaze is busy uploading my latest backup data (right now it's chewing on 8GB of photos from today).

jfriend

Managed to grab a screen capture during loading:

Andy

Thanks John, we'll see if we can fix that up!