IE compatibility

Your site is not downloading particularly fast in Safari probably due it not being optimized. The use of the iWeb Photo template doesn't help!

Have a look at this page to get some idea of what you need to do.....

http://www.iwebformusicians.com/WebMusic/iWebandInternetExplorer.html

"I may receive some form of compensation, financial or otherwise, from my recommendation or link."

My web page looks the way I want it to, but refuses to scroll down smoothly on Windows XP using Internet Explorer. It evetnually will load on the same computer using Firefox, but all of the shading of the text boxes is lost. There are some small issues with the way the boxes appear in Firefox on my iMac....but Safari seems fine.

Too bad that most of the people I want to reach use Windows.

Since the reality is that the majority of the world uses the terrible IE browser and will not change even to get higher quality, does this mean that I will have to go back into iWeb and redo all of my website? I never did a site before and am not sure that I completely understand how to optimize what I have done. www.northwestdemocratalliance.com I volunteered to do a basic site that would just be there, but not need too many updates or anything fancy....NOTHING IS EVER EASY!

Is there an "Optimizing for Dummies"?

Any information would be appreciated.

Too bad that most of the people I want to reach use Windows.

Too bad that most people use Internet Explorer. But they have choice.

Since the reality is that the majority of the world uses the terrible IE browser and will not change even to get higher quality, does this mean that I will have to go back into iWeb and redo all of my website?

Do not adapt to their reality. Your website is up-to-date for the 21st century.

Optimizing for Dummies

What do you intent to optimize? MSIE does not understand todays technology, like canvas, the object element, transparent backgrounds of webpages.

[sample1|http://www.wyodor.net/iFrame> [sample2|http://www.wyodor.net/fotografie> [sample3|http://www.wyodor.net/hello_world>

Jerky scrolling is a symptom of the file size being too big for IE to handle. You can do a lot in iWeb by optimizing images and loading them as JPEGs. Avoid the use of frames, drop shadows etc...

http://roddymckay.com/PhotoSatellite/OptimizeImageFile.html

Don't type text into shapes and use web safe fonts so that you don't have to convert fonts to images....

http://www.iwebformusicians.com/WebMusic/FontsandColors.html

If your colors look bad, change them to web safe.

Optimizing your files before upload will make the biggest difference. I usually get around 40% faster download by doing this.

I use Web Site Maestro to optimize and upload changed files only. It does have a bit of a learning curve but the manual is comprehensive and support is fast and efficient.

http://www.tonbrand.nl/home.htm

WebCrusher is an alternative that is easier to learn but not quit so fast and efficient....

http://www.ragesw.com/products/optimize-web-sites.html

"I may receive some form of compensation, financial or otherwise, from my recommendation or link."

and these attitudes are why Apple continues to hurt for market share. Tweak the Mac software to help us cross-platform consultants use our Macs to provide service to our PC clients who out number the Mac available clients by a landslide!!

How bad is that learning curve? Most of my visitors have slow connections, so reading your post (I knew nothing of this need) I would rather go with the most optimizing if that learning curve isn;t too bad for an old man.

Its not that difficult and, once you have the application set up, its more or less automatic.
Download the trial version and see how you get on. I think it only allows you to optimize a percentage of the files but at least you will learn how to work it.

First stumbling block

It says if I'm using photo comments (does that mean my explication of the picture below it?) or a hit counter, I need to publish to mobil me. I did not set up an account an an apple server, I have my own, and the upload of the full 91 MB to later optimize doesn't sound efficient.

Can I be reading this right? It seemed pretty easy til that.

Things like hit counter, blog and photo comments etc are not available to us that don't publish to MobileMe anyway!

Then photo comments aren't the comments I put under the pictures?

Photo comments are those that viewers send in to tell you how wonderful your images are!

ok, don't need them and shouldn't affect third party iframe hit counters.

thanks

I just check my build website in IE 8 and it can't load some scripts such as the photo/slide show script and Google map also didn't work.

In all other browsers it works good, but slow loading. Even after I optimize site, it didn't help.

The only thing what you can do is, to check add ons available for IE, but if works after, i don't know

I like the look of the drop shadows and frames that I used on my website, but will remove them if I have to.

The photographs are fairly LoRez. I PhotoShopped them before putting them on the site. 72 resolution. Size 154x202 pixels. Is that what you mean by optimized?

About colors...how do I know if my colors are web safe? Some of the color differences on the page are caused by me. I wish that there was an eye-dropper tool in iWeb like in PhotoShop. I could match the colors exactly.

I chose Helvetica as the font. It is universally used isn't it? I didn't want serifs.

I saw counters mentioned in another post. Can I inset one I found for free on the internet in my site without causing problems? I am not publishing to Mobile Me and am using FTP.

Thanks!