git-steb
commented
2 years ago Thanks for pointing out a low-bandwidth use case. We'll investigate, if we could use even smaller thumbnail files (or none) in certain views.
Some quick remedies for now:
a) If you use the most recent version of the catalogue you have a choice to only new N results per page. This would allow you to truncate the number of downloaded images.
b) Not sure, if this resolves the issue, but I made a small modification 75ee40a871e0163ba915735c472a9deddd2b6abf that enables lazy image loading for the thumbnails, i.e. only the ones in view are downloaded.
c) Ensure you are using the site from its current location at https://orca.research.sfu.ca/catalogue to check if the new feature makes any difference.
If lazy loading already resolves the issue for you, feel free to close it.
We'll try to link further changes to the thumbnail loading performance (e.g. adding an option to show none, or smaller files, etc.) here, as well.
scottveirs
VWJF
I tried to access the catalogue (Chrome, MacBook) when I was visiting Orcasound Lab on the west side of San Juan Island. At this location in Washington, the download bandwidth is pretty limited (5 MB/s down; 0.1 MB/s up).
The catalog loaded slowly, taking 30-60 seconds to complete, possibly due to other traffic on the LAN. This seems to be due to the images having a file size of about 100kB and the initial/default view of catalogue involving some 90 images. That's about 10MB which could result in a similar performance issue on e.g. mobile devices.
I'm pretty sure I had already loaded the catalogue in this location on this browser+device, so am wondering whether there is a way to force the catalogue code to use cached images first, rather than downloading again?
Alternatively, this issue could motivate a simplified initial/default view -- e.g. one that presents only one example of each call type first, then gives an option to download/view more examples subsequently...