Slow menu speed on Mac IE 5.1

Wansford · Post by **Wansford** » Wed Jul 21, 2004 3:41 pm

Hi,

Would someone mind taking a look at our menus in IE on a Mac? I've been told that they're really slow on OS 9.2 and IE 5.2.

http://www.spotlightom.com/hyperia/index.aspx
(this is just a temporary url)

Is there anything I can do to speed them up?

Thanks,
Lee

Post by **John** » Wed Jul 21, 2004 10:00 pm

Not in any way trying to be a jerk here, but I'm curious why the concern for a browser that is no longer supported or developed for the Mac. Even CERT has recommended dropping IE completely (see http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/06/28 ... _explorer/.

Sorry, but I don't have a Mac here at work to check your problem. One of the other folks will take a look.

cubefree · Post by **cubefree** » Wed Jul 21, 2004 10:37 pm

Yes, IE for the mac is a dying browser, while certainly hundreds of thousands potentially still use old systems... at some point you have to draw a line in the sand ... as with Netscape 4.x.

You could of course, add an alert box, telling them your site isn't going to display well and they should upgrade.

stephen702 · Post by **stephen702** » Wed Jul 21, 2004 11:35 pm

I raised this question with Maz last year, and she said to make the menu as lean as possible--cut down the number of images, remove unnecessary code in the menu_js file, compress the file using this site's compression utility. It helped, but as has been stated already, there's only so much that can be done with a flawed interface (Mac/IE, not Milonic!)

Post by **John** » Thu Jul 22, 2004 4:49 am

Finally got a chance to look at it on my Mac. 5.2.3 definitely crawls. Safari is faster by a fair piece.

However, in both cases the menu was the first thing rendered. What took the time was the rest of the graphics on the page. I don't have time to look at your code right now, but it would seem to me the problem is not in the menu.

Wansford · Post by **Wansford** » Thu Jul 22, 2004 2:33 pm

Thanks. Need to support Mac IE because although it may be defunct there are still a significant number of people using it, in the UK anyway. I know there's a lot of graphics on the page but the menu is still sluggish and unusable compared to the PC. My only option is to either limit the menu to just the first level of options for IE on the Mac or try some other menu components.

Thanks anyway.

Lee

Post by **John** » Thu Jul 22, 2004 3:17 pm

Wansford wrote:I know there's a lot of graphics on the page but the menu is still sluggish and unusable compared to the PC.

Not trying to pick a fight, Lee, but that's not what I observed...

John wrote:However, in both cases the menu was the first thing rendered. What took the time was the rest of the graphics on the page.

Wansford · Post by **Wansford** » Thu Jul 22, 2004 5:02 pm

Sorry, I've just been told it was IE 5.1 not 5.2

Lee

Post by **John** » Thu Jul 22, 2004 5:14 pm

Wansford wrote:Sorry, I've just been told it was IE 5.1 not 5.2

Even worse!

5.2.3 was the last OS X version, not sure about Classic.

Wansford · Post by **Wansford** » Thu Jul 22, 2004 5:17 pm

Yeah, he's using OS 9.2. Personally I think all Macs should be burned

Post by **John** » Thu Jul 22, 2004 5:28 pm

Wansford wrote:Yeah, he's using OS 9.2. Personally I think all Macs should be burned

Careful. You're treading on very dangerous territory with them thar words...

Wansford · Post by **Wansford** » Thu Jul 22, 2004 5:32 pm

...to be taken with a pinch of salt of course

Post by **John** » Thu Jul 22, 2004 6:05 pm

Wansford wrote:...to be taken with a pinch of salt of course

Well, if you talk to the other Team Members you'll find that, along with that pinch of salt, there will probably be a .45 loaded with some very nasty stuff...

Maz · Post by **Maz** » Thu Jul 22, 2004 6:08 pm

Wansford wrote:...to be taken with a pinch of salt of course

Ouch that stings, going to get that mosqito.

John, try bug spray

maz

Wansford · Post by **Wansford** » Fri Jul 23, 2004 9:34 am

OK I relent! All joking aside does anyone have IE 5.1 on their Mac that could try our menus to confirm what the speed is like?

Cheers,
Lee

Maz · Post by **Maz** » Fri Jul 23, 2004 4:46 pm

Hi,

I have 5.2 I don't even like opening that browser.

Your problem is the special offers, I'm assuming that's the menu.

If you really want it to display well on the mac you need to shorten the list, what you could do is split it into a subdirectory so certain products are in a group and prevents the scroll bar from comming up everytime.

So instead of having one long list, have like a dozen that will open quicker and then a submenu to those rather than one long list that ie can't handle in a timely way.

Hope this helps.

maz

Wansford · Post by **Wansford** » Fri Jul 23, 2004 5:13 pm

Maz,

There should be two menus, special offers & products. Special offers has about 25 menu items. Products, which should be just above it (below the credit card logos), has about 50 menu items and most of these have submenus coming off them. It's the products menu that's causing the most problems, due to it's size I guess.

Is it possible to use different menu data for different browsers? I suppose you could use the same technique as is used to load either the DOM or NS4 code.

Regards,
Lee

Post by **John** » Fri Jul 23, 2004 6:25 pm

Sorry. I only have 5.2.3, and I keep it locked up so it doesn't disturb the other foks on the drive.

Maz · Post by **Maz** » Fri Jul 23, 2004 9:57 pm

I don't blame you John, its a big security risk.

Lee,

Yes, that is what I'm saying, but why try to work around it for the browser, I think that would be making more work too?

I didn't look if these are being served via php or something.

Surely it would be easier for everyone if you listed such as clothes, gear, tackle, or whatever it is, as your submenu, then items after that?

Then the first set of submenus never change, only what's after that.

It would reduce the long list four fold and probably better all round.

maz

Wansford · Post by **Wansford** » Sat Jul 24, 2004 11:19 am

Maz,

The first submenu is a list of categories already. They just have a lot of them! The submenu for each category lets you choose a particular manufacturer or all products within that category. The customer has around 1500 product lines and they're happy with the structure of the menus so I'm not sure if they'd want to change it anyway.

By the way, the menus are built dynamically with ASP.NET but are cached on the server.

Lee