Browsing forums uses lot of bytes - make smaller?

[groenem]

My employer gives us each month a list of all the websites visited together with the amount of bytes downloaded. Kubuntuforums stand out way above the other sites when it comes to bytes downloaded - and that just for browsing. This pushes my internet cap fast to full.
The site really looks great and everything. I was just wondering if it could be possible to use stuff and graphics that is smaller in bytes. Maybe less fancy, but still cool and modern? Just a thought...

[Open Source]

Re: Browsing forums uses lot of bytes - make smaller?

Let me think about that. Maybe I could have second theme that is smaller. Do you happen to know where the bulk of the data comes from? I am assuming it is due to all of the icon images.

Thanks
OS

[groenem]

Re: Browsing forums uses lot of bytes - make smaller?

Hi there,
I have attached a screenprint of my Temporary Internet files. It seems that the proble is not the icons, but the index.php?topic files. Isn't there someone on the forum who are a pro with website design and maybe have an idea how to make it smaller? This will also make the website brows faster.

[Open Source]

Re: Browsing forums uses lot of bytes - make smaller?

Well one main issue is that there is no separate CSS file for mkportal, so every page that is loaded, contains all of that information. If I separate the CSS information from the php file, I wonder if it would cut down on the size. Obviously, the index.php file would be smaller, but it would still need to load the external CSS file, so would it really save any traffic? I don't know. When you browse a page that uses CSS, does the computer store that file locally as a temporary file so that it doesn't have to load every time in the future? If anybody knows the answers to these questions, that would be helpful. Thanks

OS

[javierrivera]

Re: Browsing forums uses lot of bytes - make smaller?

It will if the Css file is the same for every page, it should be cached and downloaded only once.

As CSS info are more than 500 hundred lines, it will substract a lot of size, specially to the smallest topics.

But the HTML code is also complex, more than 1000 lines for this topic.

Javier.

[Open Source]

Re: Browsing forums uses lot of bytes - make smaller?

Ok, I appreciate the info. I am going to try and extract the CSS info into its own file, but I won't be able to get to it this week because I am so extremely busy. It's possible I may work on it on Friday, however most likely I will do it next week.

Thanks,

OS

[Goeroeboeroe]

Re: Browsing forums uses lot of bytes - make smaller?

I had a look at the code. The css is about 10 K, so if you take that out that's 10 K less.
But the code for the page itself is also extremely inefficient. But I guess this code is generated automatically, so you probably can't do much about that.
If I would code a page like this by hand, the code would be only a fraction of what it's now. But I don't know how to solve this, I say it only to give you an idea about the amount of code in this page. Maybe other software?

[Open Source]

Re: Browsing forums uses lot of bytes - make smaller?

I have actually contemplated going with Vbulletin, for the forum software, but I need to raise some money to purchase the license. I have also wondered if a portion of the code is a result of mkportal. I may need to switch to tinyportal, or something along those lines. Like you said, the code is generated by the software, so there isn't any way to really shrink it down. Anybody got any opinions or ideas?

OS

[javierrivera]

Re: Browsing forums uses lot of bytes - make smaller?

Anybody got any opinions or ideas?

Well, this is an open source forum... if you have an itch...

We should be able to raise a small group that will be able to adapt some open source forum software or even develop our own.

I have too little free time, but count me in. Unluckily I have little experience in php, but for sure I have strong python, database and HTML skills. I have developed in django (python web framework), have made small adaptations to php projects (dotproject), and have been making a live out of developing software for 7 o 8 years.

Javier.

[Open Source]

Re: Browsing forums uses lot of bytes - make smaller?

I appreciate the offer, and I am sure there are plenty of skilled coding people on here. Of course time is always difficult to come by since we all have jobs and such. Creating software from the ground up would be difficult, however editing previously created software such as mkportal or smf would not be as time consuming. Not sure exactly what I would do to cut down on the traffic data, but we could look into it. Thanks again for your support.

OS

[claydoh]

Re: Browsing forums uses lot of bytes - make smaller?

I think that just decreasing the amount of graphics may help a lot. The php code generates the pages on the fly so to speak, I doubt that you can get the php/html to be any smaller really. Compare some of the generated page sizes of different forums using different php software, and you will see only slightly lower sizes, at least in the few I have taken a look at, depending on the length of the thread. That difference in size, though probably adds up in the long run.
(the css content of the page for this forum thread for example is about 8.1k out of the 126k, so is removing it really gonna help much?)

I thing databases calls on the server and speed of generating the pages is more important (for a forum as opposed to static web pages) than individual page sizes, the boss's concerns notwithstanding

[javierrivera]

Re: Browsing forums uses lot of bytes - make smaller?

Did you do something?.

Now the Document Size tool of WebDeveloper Toolbar reports something different from yesterday. Now Doc size is:

Documents (1 file)	1 kb (116 kb uncompressed)
Images (68 files)	129 kb
Objects (0 files)	
Scripts (4 files)	39 kb
Style Sheets (2 files)	4 kb
	Total	173 kb (287 kb uncompressed)

Now, the only remaining problem are the images. But in the modify form the document is not compressed.

Maybe the easiest route is just configure text compression. And maybe a graphic less theme could help some people. Or the option of disabling avatars.

I will keep all these as an option as I enjoy eye-candy .

Javier.

[Open Source]

Re: Browsing forums uses lot of bytes - make smaller?

I did not do anything, however disabling avatars may be an option. Let me see if I can add that in.

[Goeroeboeroe]

Re: Browsing forums uses lot of bytes - make smaller?

@Open Source

I've send you two mails at the address webmaster at kubuntuforums dot net, and I want to be absolutely sure you read them.
I think there may be something wrong on this forum that puts your privacy at a risk.
Maybe I'm wrong and in that case I apoligize, and I'm sorry if this looks a bit secret.
But I want to be absolutely sure you read my two mails, and maybe you don't look to often at webmaster@ etc.
In case you don't received them because everything is treated like spam or something like that, please let me know.
I really think you should read them as soon as possible, in case I'm right.

[Open Source]

Re: Browsing forums uses lot of bytes - make smaller?

Thanks for the email. I have changed the sidebar, so that the image gallery block no longer appears. That will save some bandwidth.