Page 1 of 2

End user feedback on recent website modifications.

Posted: Fri 16 Feb 2018 6:35 am
by BeaumarisWX
Hi,
My Saratoga Template over the years has been heavily modified in order to cater for Australian/Tasmanian based display.
Reason being most current templates only cater for Europe/US etc, so from a Radar/Synop/Fire/Warnings/Alerts/Advisories/Earthquakes/etc...etc. point I have had to script my own.
Over time they have resulted in my main Index page becoming slow to load, hung on start while accessing the multiple Alert/Warning/etc. checks I had included over time.
So today set about doing a first pass major cleanup, and although I still have a couple of unresolved ones, which I will eventually fix, I was hoping to get some feedback from any of you with regards the now current index page load from a user point of view.
If you could take the time and have a view and give your feedback via post, it would be greatly appreciated.
Site: https://southfranklinweather.com/weather/index.php
or
Site: http://southfranklinweather.com/weather/index.php
As I do not redirect to https
kind regards,

Re: End user feedback on recent website modifications.

Posted: Fri 16 Feb 2018 8:00 am
by ConligWX
Hi Tony.

You've some great work with this Template for your area.

I'll take a look at in over the weekend and get back to you.

Re: End user feedback on recent website modifications.

Posted: Fri 16 Feb 2018 2:48 pm
by PaulMy
Hi Tony,
That looks great, and a lot of stuff...

On the https link the first time I tried it it took about 10 sec to see anything and then about 6 sec more to complete (10 -16). The second time I tried it it was 4 - 10 sec. My computer is sometimes slow to respond and that could have been the reason for the longer time. Addutional tries all in the 4 - 10 range.
On the http link the first time it was 5 sec to see anything and another 5 to finish loading (5 - 10). The second time about 4 - 8 seconds.

Enjoy,
Paul

Re: End user feedback on recent website modifications.

Posted: Fri 16 Feb 2018 2:59 pm
by water01
Http is definitely faster than https.

I am currently sat on a AT&T mobile hotspot in Aubrey Texas just outside of Dallas and the screens loaded fine with in 5-10 seconds and as the images were cached later loads were faster.

The last bit to load seems to be the grey forecast bits under the Sager Forecast which load and then resize.

I would have thought that was all pretty quick given the amount of information on the front-page.

Well done, nice revamp.

Re: End user feedback on recent website modifications.

Posted: Fri 16 Feb 2018 6:14 pm
by saratogaWX
Hi Tony,

You have a great design for your page.. congratulations.

I get some timings for page loading that match other's experience -- about 10 seconds on https.

Using the web developer tools in Firefox, I see that the graph*.php hidden images (under the mouseover icons) each take from 2 to 5 seconds to load, and since they're included in the page (but hidden until mouseover), they all count for the pageload time.

I suggest you make those clickable popup window links instead of mouseover viewable links.. that way, if folks want to see, they click and if not, the loading of those graphs won't impact the full page load time.

As is, your page is about 2.5MB total and fully loads in 14 seconds. You can trim that back by making the graph links as popup windows instead of inline hidden divs.

Best regards,
Ken

Re: End user feedback on recent website modifications.

Posted: Fri 16 Feb 2018 11:43 pm
by BeaumarisWX
Hi all,
Firstly thank you all for taking your time out to test my page and the time to respond, it is greatly appreciated.

Ken I have adopted your proposal (convert the Mouse Over Graphs to Popups), makes sense now that I think about it.

The graphs are mySql driven and although I do have a cache timer on them, if an end user hits the page at same time the cache has expired it would hang. Had not picked up on that prior to you highlighting it.
I also did same for the Location image in the header which was also a mouse over image, only small but still contributed.

Again,
Thank you all so much,
p.s. water01 (Enjoying a Retirement Holiday matey - enjoy)?
kind regards,
graphpopup.png

Re: End user feedback on recent website modifications.

Posted: Sat 17 Feb 2018 2:15 am
by saratogaWX
Nice work, Tony. You've cut the page load down to 1.5MB and it loads in about 5 seconds on https. A good improvement!!

The 'sweet spot' for page loading is 1 to 3 seconds, with faster being better. Over 10 seconds, and many will abandon the page load.

Re: End user feedback on recent website modifications.

Posted: Sat 17 Feb 2018 2:43 am
by BeaumarisWX
Thanks Ken,
Greatly appreciated, so close but not quite there yet.
I will have to look at streamlining my numerous warnimngs/alerts/etc.etc... next weekend.
i took the opportunity while converting the mouse over graphs, to convert the graphs from my old Mysql Charts to utilise my homeweather/dashboard MySql charts. So the user gets a tad more detail when mousing over the charts which are now highslide html iframe popups.

kind regards,
newpopup.png

Re: End user feedback on recent website modifications.

Posted: Sat 17 Feb 2018 5:07 am
by water01
p.s. water01 (Enjoying a Retirement Holiday matey - enjoy)?
Doing a Steve but on a different continent (http://dmjsystems.co.uk/rvblog/) :D

Re: End user feedback on recent website modifications.

Posted: Sat 17 Feb 2018 6:20 am
by BeaumarisWX
Hi,
After some additional script (culling, though not as yet touched my Warning/Alert/etc...scripts) I think, hopefully your end will now be below the 5 second mark, as here it is below three. :clap:

Hi David, yes I saw that, had a quick look at your rvblog earlier (lucky fellow).
i see you have passed Tom (WxSIM) already and will you head up as far as Ken True ?

Thanks again for all the help.
Kind regards,

Re: End user feedback on recent website modifications.

Posted: Sat 17 Feb 2018 2:58 pm
by water01
Where I sit it is just about 4 seconds for the http and slightly over 5 seconds for the https.

Does your hosting service allow compression of the content as this can also help. I know it is available on most sites, on mine it is in the Cpanel under Optimize Website.

Still a really good job though must have taken you a while. :clap: :clap:

I will have to look up the Cumulus Use map and see who is near for weather forecasts on the way up to Vancouver!!

Re: End user feedback on recent website modifications.

Posted: Sat 17 Feb 2018 3:22 pm
by PaulMy
@David water01
I will have to look up the Cumulus Use map and see who is near for weather forecasts on the way up to Vancouver!!
Not many on the Cumulus map in that part of the USA or Canada. However the Saratoga Mesonet has quite a number in the USA Northwest Weather Network and a few Western Canada Weather Network and some of those would be using Cumulus too.

What's next after Vancouver?

Enjoy,
Paul

Re: End user feedback on recent website modifications.

Posted: Sat 17 Feb 2018 3:27 pm
by water01
Vancouver by late June to meet my son and daughter and families and then down the mid-west via Salt Lake City, Las Vegas (got to see the Grand Canyon and Monument Valley while we are here), then Oklahoma City and on to New Orleans by mid October.

Plan is to always stay in 70F+ as I hate the cold!!

But I must not hijack the Tony's Topic bad form for Admin!!

Re: End user feedback on recent website modifications.

Posted: Sun 18 Feb 2018 12:05 am
by BeaumarisWX
Thanks David,
I enabled Optimiser and also consolidated some .css scripts.
Kind regards,

Re: End user feedback on recent website modifications.

Posted: Mon 19 Feb 2018 11:34 am
by BeaumarisWX
Hi,
Not sure how you best test page load times, but hopefully i have now reduced again.
Still have my main warnings scripts etc. to trim next weekend, but todays changes should hopefully be quicker.
Kind regards,