I need a slideshow with a loading message

[jono]

Hi there,

I have a website http://www.freewaymedical.co.uk/productsindex.php
that has 5 slideshows that allow the user to browse through products. The site is in the process of a major overhaul and I want to change the way the slideshow works.

Currently, I preload every image (40+) for the slideshows. What I want to do now to improve loading speed, is just load the first image for each slideshow and then just retrieve each message from the server as it is requested. I want to show a loading image each time the user is waiting for an image to be retrieved.

Any ideas on how I could do this?

[Webforumz Staff]

So you're looking for something like this?

http://www.dynamicdrive.com/dynamici...loadimage2.htm
http://london-net.net/javascript/ima...tatus_bar.html

etc http://www.google.com/search?q=javas...h+progress+bar

[jono]

That is a good example, but thats not exactly what i am looking for. Basically, each time a user clicks next, the script will retrieve the next image from the server.While the next image is being retrieved, the user will see a loading message/image in the actual slideshow. When the image has been loaded from the server, the slideshow will display the loaded image.

I hope I am making sense.

[Rob]

Wouldnt it be better for the images to be pre-loading in the background (while the user is looking at the first image)

Why make the user wait, when there is no need?

[jono]

Yeah OK, that sounds like a good idea. The way I have it at the moment, the page doesn't display fully until all the images have loaded. How could I get the first images to display and then preload the rest of the images?

[Rob]

You can use javascript to preload the images:-

Code: Select all

<script language="javascript" type="text/javascript">
// create an image object
objImage = new Image();

// preload the image file
objImage.src='http://mydomain.com/myimage.jpg'; 
</script>

Obviously you need to do this for each image, or create an array of images.

Hope this helps.

[jono]

That is what I am doing at the moment.

I think that perhaps I will just continue to do it this way, but also tell the user what is happening. So I could do this as you first mentioned, with the progress bar or some splash screen.

Thanks for your help.