Loading picture navigations

[blinkk]

I don't know how much of this can be done in PHP or if even can be done at all but I think this is the best place to ask.

I have a website that has a navigation entirely made up of pictures. It's not the size I am worried about but the loading. When I refresh the page you can see the pictures loading from top to button and it doesn't look great at all. It takes time and for a brief moment you can see the red X when pictures aren't loaded.

Is there a way through JS or PHP or someother type of language that I can show the navigation only after every pic has been downloaded and show it all at once instead of pic by pic loading?

[sarahk]

Yes there are ways but I suspect you're trying to solve the wrong problem.

My recommendation would be to look at how you are building the page and how you define the links.

It might be to your benefit to have the images as background with actual text over the top. This doesn't give you the soft text but a crisper version - a matter of taste. However, it is faster loading because the same background can be used for all and technically they're not pictures, so no placeholder.

I'd be interested to see your current page and make suggestions.

[blinkk]

I was thinking about putting them as a background but the text didn't look as good. Since it is a lot of pictures that are relativly small I want the whole page to load, and then after everything is done downloading, to show the page.

The website address is just a placeholder until we come up with our own name and that blue sell your music online is a placeholder for a ad.

[sarahk]

using some code I've got at http://www.hostultra.com/~data/layers.php

I've constructed this:
http://www.hostultra.com/~data/muck/iph.htm

but, ironically, the background items aren't fully loaded. Not sure how to get around that.

My example shows that the page does get indexed even though google should be able to see that the content is hidden.

[blinkk]

I gues that instead of relying on that I'll just make the SOBs who visit it wait. It isnt that long of a wait anyhoo. Thanks for the help.

But is there no other way to only load the navigation and not the whole page instead of waiting for the whole page to load?

[sarahk]

Originally posted by blinkk
I gues that instead of relying on that I'll just make the SOBs who visit it wait.

Ummm, you might just want to revisit the way you think about your "customers".