Sneak preview

[IanKennedy]

OK, it's time for a sneak preview of a new feature for the DITL. This is unlike any other new feature that we have ever released before in that it's not a new part of the site at all. You will not see anything new but it will make a large difference to the workings of the site. OK, here it is. Download and install this font:

http://www.ditl.org/Anderson%20Supercar.ttf

To install on Windows you need to drop the file into c:\Windows\Fonts or equivalent location. To install on the Mac simply double click the file and hit the install button.
Once installed restart your web browser and return to the site. You may also need to clear the cache to see the full effect.

OK, so what will you see. If it all works well you will see a dramatic speed up in loading the top strip and menus on the left of the screen. This is because the graphics that are usually needed to display these menus are no longer used. Instead it uses some funky styles to produce the same effect. This turns the HTML for the page into pretty tiny stuff, with no images required. Thus the speed improvement. Of cause if you don't have the font installed the site will still work in the old way, graphics and all.

As always I've tested this on Firefox, Opera and Safari on Macintosh and Firefox, Opera and Internet Exploder on Windows. Please let me know if there are any issues.

Of cause this feature will be rolled out across the site in general. I'm already working on making the headers use the system and looking into other area.

[Captain Picard's Hair]

Since I won't be using my current machine in a week's time, I'll make this a part of the "reloading" of my new computer once I get it.

[Mikey]

I'll have to do it during one of the rare times that I'm on here from home, instead of at work.

[Mikey]

OK, done. Is anything supposed to actually LOOK different? Because I do see somehwat of a faster refresh of the index page, but everything looks the same.

[KuvahMagh]

The left frame loads much faster for me but looks different from before, I assume due to the new font.

[Mikey]

Mine loads faster, but I still don't see a difference in appearance.

[KuvahMagh]

Hmm, I do, on both my desktop and my laptop, one running WinXP Home and the other running Pro, both with Firefox 2.0.0.14. If I get a chance int he next few days I'll check it out on my server running Linux.

[Mikey]

IDK - I'm running XP and IE.

[Graham Kennedy]

The text buttons do look slightly different; the font we use for the graphics is a commercial one that we can't just say "here, download this". We found a free one that is as close to a Trek font as we can easily find instead.

[stitch626]

I have installed the new font.
Just to let you know, the end of each line on the main site (like right after Graffics) looks... funny. It has what appears to be lines from the original graffic, or something like that.
Not complaining, just stating what I see.
[edit] Not seeing it anymore. Probly browser trouble. Sorry.

[IanKennedy]

Sorry, been away for the weekend. As I said in the first post. If it all works well you will not see any difference. Now that said it will look slightly different as the font is slightly different than our previous one. I've also explained the speed difference it should be quite dramatic, if it's not that's probably because the buttons are in your cache making the old system feel faster. Try going to a part of the site you've not been to for a while, with the old system it will be slow, each graphic loading one after the other (or at most a few at a time). With the new system it should be fairly instant the whole thing should just appear.

[Martin]

I have to admit I wasn't expecting it to be that fast but it was really fast. I often noticed before that when I went to pages such as 'Federation ships' it would take quite a while for the full list to come on but not now. In all, I think this calls for a !

[IanKennedy]

I have to admit I wasn't expecting it to be that fast but it was really fast. I often noticed before that when I went to pages such as 'Federation ships' it would take quite a while for the full list to come on but not now. In all, I think this calls for a !

Yup, it really is very very much faster.

[Mikey]

OK, I just cleaned everything out and I do see the difference, as well as a bigger increase in load speed. Thanks, Ian!