Preserved Topic: Best way to preload a site (images)? (Page 1 of 1)

Heya,

lets say I wanna create a website with themes - meaning that a user can choose how the site will look (background colors, logo change etc.) by selecting from a dropdown menu. A bit like znippets.com actually. I'll then have a pretty large "header" which includes the logo and a photo-kinda background which will probably be more than 1600px in width, supporting large resolutions.

Obviously I'm talking about headerimages of a pretty big size and I want it to change themes smoothly when the user selects it. So far my only solution seems to be some kinda image preloader, or maybe even a site preloader. You know...with a progress bar that says "loading site.....72%....84%...". But im not sure whether thats the best way or not.

What do you guys think?

Whats the best way to preload images like this?

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Well the main purpose was actually "only" to preload the huge photoimages, so that the change of theme would be as fast as possible. I know the browser keeps the images loaded in its cache once they've been loaded one time. It was mainly to avoid a longer loading session when choosing another theme.

Of course I could just load every photoimage on the frontpage using <img src="photo1.jpg" width=1 height=1> tags but im not sure if thats good or not.

Suggestions for image-compressing without loosing quality would be greatly appreciated too

Why does the header have to be one huge image?

This web site has a garphical header that will expand to any resolution. Pay attention to how the header loads: http://ghostrecon.ubisoft.fr/index.php

Making headers like this would be one way to cut down the file size.

Something to start on maybe...

Dracusis,

as far as i can see, the background image is a loopimage, explaining the short loading time. Then afterwards the soldierimage gets added on top of it. Surely i could do the same on some themes, but some photos are just too complicated to make into a loopimage.

But the header doesnt *have* to be one image only. It was just to make the dynamical themechange (stylesheets) easier instead of adding 4+ background images to it