Supersite and graphic options

I'm building a very graphic oriented site, ie one that has loads of photograph images of ladies fashions.
I am using the supersite template to build a continuous scrolling window and as thbis will load everything at once I'm wondering what to about images.

Most of them will have a pop up enlarged copy that need to be good quality.
So for instance the usual size is around the 450 pixel size with the pop-up going to 880.
If I Optimise the pictures on the page I presume it will do it to the 450 size and the pop-up will suffer quality as a result.

So should I just make the original pictures by using the 880 to start with then don't optimise them?
Perhaps to make it quicker to load, I could perhaps just put a link to each individual picture which means they won't do an auto-load on accessing the website.

The optimizing command reduces the pictures that are in your .web file and not those on your website. Optimizing those pictures is done upon export, so make sure that in the Utilities/Web Properties/Website dialog the "Retina (hi-def) images" is ticked if you want your pictures to look good on hi-def devices.

If you want high-quality images to show on your website, also make sure that in the Utilities/Options/View dialog the "Import at dpi specified in the image file" radio button is ticked (or otherwise the "Resize large imported photos to xxx pixels" radio button with the appropriate pixel value).

However, as you mention that you use 'loads of photographs,' this may slow down your computer (hence the "Optimize all images" command). You also mention that you're using a supersite template (which means one large page) so with 'loads of photographs' all these images need to be loaded before the browser will show the page. This may negatively affect user experience when visiting your site. So, it depends how many is 'loads of photographs'.

My experience in the past with super sites that have a lot of content is it takes a long time to load and unless this has been fixed, by the time all the content has loaded your visitor has moved on. I would go with a traditional site.

Ditto

Out of interest, I don't have a "view" tab on the options menu....?
Attachment 119423

View is in Designer Pro X. There are considerably more tabs.

Just so you know the extent of the site I'm hopeful of doing on a Supersite, (and the reason why it probably isn't a good idea now that I know) the site I already have for my 1st attempt is my wife's shop site at
www.thebridesmother.co.uk
What I was hoping to do was to emulate the scrolling effect of the WordPress sites I have seen. It just seems easier to me to do it this way.
I am now minimizing the sizes of the pictures as far as possible so the site should open quicker, BUT, I have a few smallish video clips on the Condici & Ispirato pages.
The Condici ones are embedded via the Youtube Share facility, and the Ispirato ones are what I downloaded and inserted from my own computer. I have since reduced the file sizes with Free Video Compressor.

Just a thought, as it's the ongoing scrolling effect I would like instead of clicking to access each page, is there any way I could invoke a next page appearance when the page being looked at is scrolled to the bottom. Sort of a continuous scrolling effect but separate pages nonetheless.

You have some problems with your nav bar. The mouseovers are different from the mouseoff. If you need help with this let us know.

And I think the font you have used for Norma & June Fashions is not as elegant as the designs themselves.

You can achieve the effect of the continuous scrolling by using a button at the bottom of the page that links to the next page.

It might be fun for someone to integrate https://infinite-scroll.com/ into Xara.

Acorn

Very nice site Lynn. In the Ispirato page the videos require Flash. I wouldn't recommend this. Flash is dead.

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Originally Posted by gwpriester

View is in Designer Pro X. There are considerably more tabs.

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I find that really odd - WDP is standalone web design software and I would think that that tab would be available seeing that it relates to pics opened in a web design document??? I have always resized pics before importing them in a web design - this would save a LOT of time!

What would you suggest?
The other video clips are from Vimeo shares which seem to embed with no problem but I have no share source for the Ispirato ones

Have made the menu bar into a sticky now but it seems there's still a size problem with the menu options. Will do that today if I get time.

Anything on the video format options?
Flash isn't my preferred player but what else is there?
It mashes the Ispirato page up into a real mess on initial opening.

Also I was wondering about making an object "slide out". The animation options only show a slide in.

I have found the vjs video player. It's used by lots of online newspaper sites. Can this be intergrated? If so, how.
Seems to be just the job.

Hi Lynnzer. When I viewed your lovely site the flash players appeared as large squares that overlapped your photographs, and the page took a very long time to load. Vimeo can be embedded into a placeholder, and this will load much more quickly. Just choose the size of your square, select embed on vimeo, copy the code and place into the placeholder. Then open the placeholder and inspect the code - you will see the measurements of the vid. Replace these measurements with the size of the placeholder. Having said this, vids/animation is on the way out. Site visitors want to see your site quickly and they do not want to wait for things to load. Plus most visitors will not even view a video on a site (except me...I love vids). Lots of large interesting photographs with no pop ups is user friendly, and a more modern approach.

Many thanks for the input.
I'm doing a couple of sites at present, both for my wife's business. The one she has most history with is thebridesmother.co.uk.

I am using ideas from the Supersite and when I see an advantage in the same stuff being on the other site I place it on there.

To that end I'm doing the Ispirato page here.

I don't have the video clips from either Vimeo or Youtube. I downloaded them from the suppliers site and saved them as mp4's then decreased the dimensions and file size using a superb tool I found today called Handbrake. This has lost lots of bulk and will allow a quicker download.

Now I think I have placed the clips on the site OK, sort of, but there are a couple of issues. First of all, the player window. The header graphics on page are quite deep so I placed the player rectangle as close to it as I could without overlapping and made it a sticky. This is set as the player for all the other video clips. Problem is that when the page loads the sticky is right at the bottom of the loaded page. Is there any way to use a pop-up player window which can be set to open on clicking the" play the video link"

I'd also like the initial video to autostart but can't find how to do it. I guess I have to add some extra code in the html code box?

I have some sort of issue on where the video clip is on the player box. It seems to sit around a third of the way down and has a black bar above it. I want it at the top. Any ideas?


As for the Supersite, I'm trying to decrease the size of all pictures to the lowest feasible and will push the resultant site out into the blue yonder for another critique.

Can't seem to be able to edit the above so excuse the new post following on.

Right, I've tinkered around with the settings a good bit and am still no further forward.
I'm uploading the newest version of the page and you can see that the placeholder/viewing frame is still showing a large black bar above it. I have moved the placeholder into the header but put it to the back so it doesn't spoil the appearance of the header. However it has a frame showing on the edges now. Also, even though the placeholder is sized in the i-frame I created as a 450 by 540 size, to fill the space to the right of the images out to the page edge the box seems to retract inwardly into something much smaller than it appears on the Xara creation page. How do I fix that?

I'm pretty much impressed with the reduction in loading times as the page doesn't have any embedded video so at least the only wait is when someone presses the button to start a clip. They'll know what's happening so can either wait or view the pictures instead.

I have 5 browsers installed. Chrome, Firefox, Torch, Opera and finally Microsoft IE. The movies all open in the proper place on all browsers except MSIE which puts them in a speaprate page after a download. Can this be fixed? Any other browser experiences that have problems such as Safari etc, I'd be happy to hear of them.

So, how do I get the placeholder without showing the top black bit. How do I remove the edges. How do I keep the placeholder size as I want it?

I'm dead keen to sort this stuff out and even Youtube doesn't enlighten me on the problems or correct manner of doing things my way.

Let me tell you how I do things. I make a placeholder (drag rectangle to desired place) and size it to the dimensions I want, ie 450 by 540. I then go to placeholder properties/ HTML code(body) and set the frame by adding this: <iframe name="iframe" iframe width-"450" height="540" border=0</iframe> Then I name it for the Link as iframe.

Each of the video clips have links to where they are. In this case they are all on my host under a new folder called media. So I add a link as follows : http://www.thebridesmother.co.uk/media/923.mp4
The link is set to open in iframe. It works OK except for the problems above.

The Supersite is still under development as you will see. I am taking it in stages and doing it slowly to get the best effect. Unfortunately the Xmas preparations mean it'll be beyond Xmas when I get it finished or abandon it if it does become too unwieldy.

Here's the story so far:
http://www.thebridesmother.co.uk/Tri..._page_ispirato

Your site loads well for me but I have a reasonably fast download speed 50mbs/sec. I still believe your image/video intensive site is not an ideal candidate for a supersite.

I suggest you try running it through Google site speed test

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Originally Posted by Egg Bramhill

Your site loads well for me but I have a reasonably fast download speed 50mbs/sec. I still believe your image/video intensive site is not an ideal candidate for a supersite.

I suggest you try running it through Google site speed test

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Fantastic advice. It shows as being slow already but I have loads of images to resize downwards yet, and the videos will also be resized now I found Handbrake.
So it's still a work in progress but at least I can move forward with clear intentions on speed limitations for now.
I just love the format of the supersite though so even if I can't do it as an all-in-one project I can split it into single pages with "NEXT" buttons on the bottom of each page to continue.

http://www.thebridesmother.co.uk/Tri..._xr_page_index
Comments?

Hi Lynnzer, you asked the question so please don't be annoyed by the response.

Stop using a supersite.
Reduce the desktop width, as a lot of folks with high resolution monitors don't view sites at full screen and yours currently requires horizontal scrolling for those who don't.
The Menu is not in keeping with the rest of the sites look/feel.
The Designer menu needs to be offset, not overlay the main menu.
Why do you have the thumbnails load one after another rather at once?
The introduction text:

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Relaxed: Enjoyable experience: Personal attention: Friendly ......

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Reads like it's intended for SEO robots rather than to be addressing a human.
The Price Match Guarantee animation leads nowhere.

Just my input ;)

OK. Phew..... spent a good deal of time over Xmas to get this right. I have deliberately left the page sizes as they were as most modern computer monitors are working at high pixel widths. If not all a user has to do is reduce the window width in the browser options.

The site has now been transferred to my main server address www.thebridesmother.co.uk

I think it's as good as I can get it for now. There'a a little tidying up with font sizes and general layout of things like social media buttons etc that will be done when I get time.

The biggest time was spent on sizing each graphic to exactly the size needed to display without excess. Photoshop "Save for the Web" was damned good for that.

So how does this look to you guys? Oh, and check the mobile option too by reducing the width of the browser window or viewing it on a mobile phone.

Hi Lynn, I like your site a lot but I think you're missing my point re screen resolution.

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Reduce the desktop width, as a lot of folks with high resolution monitors don't view sites at full screen and yours currently requires horizontal scrolling for those who don't.

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You state:

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I have deliberately left the page sizes as they were as most modern computer monitors are working at high pixel widths. If not all a user has to do is reduce the window width in the browser options.

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Xara doesn't create responsive websites, it creates adaptive websites. Further you have added the text:

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If this page is too wide for your browser just go into Browser Options and reduce the viewing size accordingly

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This to the vast majority of visitors is a meaningless statement. Do you mean adjust the zoom level (Ctrl-1 etc)? Very few visitors will know how to do this. Or something else?

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... as most modern computer monitors are working at high pixel widths ....

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True, but how many visitors are using their browser at full screen? Not many I'd suggest.

I use my browser window occupying approx 60% of the screen real estate.

Here's what happens to your site as I'd view it:

I'm relatively satisfied with the website content and presentation now.
There's still a bit of tidying up to do, ie font sizes to be sorted out etc.

That apart, I'm now trying to optimise for Google.
I used to have this website in 1st spot on the 1st page until about a year ago when it started to slip back. The site was done by MS Frontpage at that time so that code such as headers, kewords, alt images etc could be changed quite quickly. However it wasn't much use in doing a multiple size site for tablets, mobile phones etc and nowhere as friendly to use as Xara in positioning text areas and images.

So the switch to Xara was a no-brainer for me.
Optimisation is checked using WebCEO which is what I used to get 1st spot on the 1st page with the Frontpage site. I could easily implement the suggested code improvements but am struggling with the Xara code juggling around.

Google algorithms seem to have changed a lot anyway and the positioning of many mainly generic websites into the top positions is a result of that.
If anyone can suggest Xara optimisation tips I'd appreciate it.

You can view the source code from the site itself and based on the main key-phrase I prefer of mother of the bride outfits, perhaps enlighten me of any code changes you think may be helpful; as well as where to make the changes ie HTML Code (body) or HTML Code (head).

Thanks for your input so far everyone.

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I prefer of mother of the bride outfits....

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Just as a suggestion, it's often worth looking at how similar businesses to yourself are achieving a high rating. Using your preferred search term I found one high on google search was using Google My Business to push that search term by adding it in brackets after their company name, i.e. Business Name - (Mother of the Bride) which seems to rank well. Their website title doesn't include this but they do tend to use it in their menu structure.

And perhaps changing your Google My Business from "Women's clothing store in Easington, England" to a more bridal focused content?

Thanks for that. I have implemented these changes. The list of categories for Google My Business isn't generally available however I found this.

Best match is for Boutique.

Looking Good ;)