I've completed my website!

Get some feedback on your site or ad from other rental owners and techies. Also a library of online resources so you can make DIY improvements to your web presence.
Enaid
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Location: Cotes d'Armor, Brittany

Post by Enaid »

kevsboredagain wrote: I'd be fairly annoyed as other systems like Wordpress or Weebly don't have this error. If you're happy, it not that important and I'll say nothing more.
I was happy with the photos because they loaded fine with me, but just concerned that it may not be that way for others.
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kevsboredagain
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Post by kevsboredagain »

Enaid wrote:
kevsboredagain wrote:I should have learned not to comment on PMP sites.
l am not an expert at IT in any way, so I found it a very easy site to use. It was probably going to be the only way I could build a website. I'm not cross because you criticised PMP. But I am concerned about the photo thing, as I didn't see it happening. And not sure how I can change it. And bit deflated now.... :(
It's easy to fix. That walnut thumbnail image is 243x323 pixels. The pop up is 357x500 pixels. If you can only specify one image, then make sure it's already sized to 375x500 or something close (but never less) before adding it to the site.

It will load 4 times faster and mobile users will thank you. You'll also have an advantage over other PMP users :P
tavi
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Post by tavi »

Lovely cottage!

A couple of things if it's helpful - could go on your tweaking list - on the accommodation page you mention the bathroom above a photo of the spiral staircase....it had me wondering if there was a mistake...

Not many interior shots (bathroom?) but some lovely ones of the area.

Think you should mention clearly in the title? how many you sleep and in what configuration....that's one of the first things people need to know.

The Outbuilding - looks pretty what is it and what's it for? :)
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Casscat
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Post by Casscat »

Kev you are speaking in Klingon to Enaid. She should not be feeling deflated about her site because it's a good first attempt and anything that needs to be changed can be changed quite easily. For most visitors the images display just fine, but the higher the quality of the photos the better they will display across all media and Enaid will get there with the encouragement of those who have either trodden the non-techie path themselves or who are, like yourself, professional web designers.
FelicityA
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Post by FelicityA »

Enaid - please, please do not feel deflated! Your photos load fine and fast with me and I have never looked at your site before. It is lovely and I especially like that gorgeous photo of the meadow flowers at the top. It makes me want to be there!
Emmy
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Post by Emmy »

I think it's great! It looks so inviting.... The photos load fast enough on my ipad, so please don't worry.....
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kevsboredagain
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Post by kevsboredagain »

Casscat wrote: the higher the quality of the photos the better they will display across all media
Casscat, sorry but what you've said there is simply incorrect when the problem is related to number of pixels NOT quality. Quantity is related to compression. If you have a webpage with a 200 pixel picture it does not display any better if you make the visitor load a 1000 pixel picture. It simply takes longer to download it and the browser has to work to resize it back down to 200 pixels.

All I said was that the pages should load 4 times faster for the content used and to me this is a serious technical issue with PMP. If your answer to that is "it looks fine to me" then so be it but please don't don't make up incorrect facts to try and justify the problem.

I'm not negating in any way the work that Enaid has done but it does get kind of annoying when PMP fans always take objection to any fault found with their beloved product. All systems have bugs and problems and the only way to improve them is to speak out not bury heads in the sand. I would be reporting it to PMP and if enough people did this, it would get fixed.

Enaid seems keen to understand the problem and know how to fix it. This shows a good attitude to learning.
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Casscat
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Post by Casscat »

kevsboredagain wrote:
Casscat wrote: the higher the quality of the photos the better they will display across all media
Casscat, sorry but what you've said there is simply incorrect when the problem is related to number of pixels NOT quality.
I know what I meant by 'quality' Kev. I'm sorry if you did not find my terminology precise enough for you.
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Casscat
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Post by Casscat »

Enaid, you may find this video to be helpful: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oi5SCqS-7xw The poster recommends some image resizing tools and most of these will make an optimised copy of your original photo while leaving the original intact. Personally I have the image resizer Powertoy which was originally designed for Windows XP but which still works for me on Windows 10: https://imageresizer.codeplex.com/
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kevsboredagain
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Post by kevsboredagain »

Casscat wrote:
kevsboredagain wrote:
Casscat wrote: the higher the quality of the photos the better they will display across all media
Casscat, sorry but what you've said there is simply incorrect when the problem is related to number of pixels NOT quality.
I know what I meant by 'quality' Kev. I'm sorry if you did not find my terminology precise enough for you.
You forget I only speak Klingon. That video demonstrates my point precisely. Pixel size first then quality. If you watch the video you'll see it's actually telling you to reduce quality slightly to optimise file size for use on the Internet not increase it. An Internet image can be compressed more than one you would use for printing.

I'm at a bit of a loss why you felt the need to bash me for daring to point out a fault in PMP, claim there is no problem there and then post a link to a video which explains exactly what I said and how to fix it.
Last edited by kevsboredagain on Wed May 18, 2016 10:27 am, edited 1 time in total.
Enaid
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Location: Cotes d'Armor, Brittany

Post by Enaid »

Thanks for the positive comments. They make me feel better.

Re some of the comments:

The photos: They are selected from the hundreds I've taken over the past 12 years or so. When I started uploading them I couldn't understand why some of the more recent ones wouldn't work. It said file too big. So I did some googling and found that I had to 'compress' them, and found out how I could do this with Picassa. It seemed they were the photos taken with my most recent camera over the past year, so I compressed those. The others loaded fine (including the walnut tree), so I thought they weren't a problem. Will have to look again at them.

Re interior shots: There aren't many more I can take. It is a small cottage. What you see is what there is, apart from the utility room (which we are redecorating in the summer, so may look more photogenic then). The bathroom is a peculiar size/shape (quirky) and impossible to photograph to make it look good (although it isn't awful!) - will have to look again at that when we are next over.

There is nothing in the outbuilding apart from wood, tools and lots of creepy-crawlies! It has a coffin-sized cupboard in the ground, perfect for dead bodies!!! It is locked when the guests are there.
FelicityA
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Post by FelicityA »

Enaid, following on from what Kev said and worried there might be a problem with my own photos, I emailed PMP with a link to this thread. They responded almost immediately and emailed me these comments which they said they were happy to have posted on the forum....

"The template for the website in question is responsive which means the images have to adapt to different screen sizes/devices. What’s happening is that the images are being loaded at the largest size needed for all screen sizes, then the browser resizes them to fit the content area.

This is the way that the majority of responsive websites work these days, including those on WordPress. So for kevsboredagain to suggest it’s a major problem with our application is a little odd.

To take the “the walnut tree" image he used as an example, at a screen size of around 990 pixels wide this image expands to be the full width of the screen. This is why it is loaded at a size larger than seems necessary.

The same thing is happening on kevsboredagain’s own website (and many of the websites in his portfolio).

For example, on this page http://www.samoensalpineholiday.com/Photos.html all of the images are loaded at over twice the size they need to be and the browser is doing the work of resizing them.

That being said, there is definitely room for improvement in the way our application loads images. Fairly recent developments in the industry now allow us to load the perfect size image for each screen size/device and this is on our “to do” list. But we decided to release the new responsive templates as they are, with acceptable load speeds, then work on speed improvements after.

So in summary, yes there is room for performance improvements, but to suggest it’s a major problem with the platform - we think that’s a bit far-fetched."

I'm happy and I hope you are too now, Enaid!
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kevsboredagain
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Post by kevsboredagain »

FelicityA wrote:Enaid, following on from what Kev said and worried there might be a problem with my own photos, I emailed PMP with a link to this thread.
Their response is excellent and now I understand how their sites are working. Normally on a responsive site, the maximum sized images would be visible at the highest display size, for obvious reasons. As the layout changes from large to small, the re-flow of elements will cause images to resize and at some resolutions the images may grow slightly to fill the container size. You chose the image sizes to fit the maximum size required for all display sizes.

For these PMP layouts, only very small thumbnail images are shown on a large display size. When you view on a much smaller display, very large, full width elements are displayed, rather than retaining this small size. It's not incorrect but it's fairly unusual to increase image sizes by 4 times for smaller displays. Those small images then become the same size or even bigger than the images in the main section.

The result is, that instead of having a long column of seemingly small images, you do in fact have a page of fairly large images, all the time. I found the slow loading of such small looking images annoying and it looked like a design flaw.

My own photos in the site mentioned are indeed 30% larger than required (not 2 times as stated by PMP) These suffer the same fate, increasing in size slightly for smaller displays to fit the container but are still a little oversized. I chose a size slightly bigger than required on purpose to allow for changes in layout and the images are still only 50kb each, which is relatively small. All the images on that page come to to same size as just 2 sidebar images on a PMP page.

So I take back what I said and there is not an error, just an unusual layout style which changes some very small images into very large ones for smaller displays. Double sidebar layouts don't work well responsively because it's hard to re-flow them.

For example, the main section image is almost full section width and the sidebar image is small. Shrink the browser by a few pixels and this changes the small image to be huge and the main image to not fit correctly. This is why the small images have been made so big in the first place.

Click on that large sidebar image and a smaller one pops up!

Image

Image
Last edited by kevsboredagain on Thu May 19, 2016 7:26 pm, edited 4 times in total.
Enaid
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Location: Cotes d'Armor, Brittany

Post by Enaid »

Thanks Felicity. I am still doing a few tweaks, but I am happy with the website, and proud that I was able to do it, as I am not techie at all.
And I put on the small ads where I work on Friday, and today have got a booking through it, so it has been worth it!
FelicityA
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Post by FelicityA »

PMP have emailed me today asking me if I would mind putting this up, as they have read your response, Kev, and would like the opportunity to correct a few things. I have cut and pasted their response email which magically shows pictures to illustrate their point (have never managed that myself on LMH which shows my limitations!)
My own photos in the site mentioned are indeed 30% larger than required (not 2 times as stated by PMP)

See highlighted sizes below. The natural size is 642 pixels wide, but it is loaded into a space of 306 pixels wide.

Image
So I take back what I said and there is not an error, just an unusual layout style which changes some very small images into very large ones for smaller displays.

We wouldn't say it's unusual. It’s actually fairly common.

Here is an example from The Wall Street Journal's website.

Image

The image is loaded at over twice the size it needs to be and on smaller screen sizes it gets much bigger.

Image

And here is another example from a very popular website built on WordPress.

Image

Again the image is loaded at over twice the size it needs to be and on smaller screen sizes it gets bigger.

Image

There are plenty of examples of this sort of behaviour online.
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