[CASK1]

I have high-speed cable internet access, but the few members who post with animated avatars cause a dramatic slowdown in navigating the forum. Anyone else experiencing this? Can anything be done?

[Hokerer]

I don't have much problem with the avatars, but the animated (and or oversized) graphics in signatures drive me crazy.  Completely messes up the formatting of the forum.

[joelambic]

There are profile settings to disable avatars and signatures in the "Looks and Layout Preferences" section.

An alternative would be a plugin - if available - for your browser to either block specific images as needed or only cycle animated graphics once or twice rather than a continuous loop.

[tygo]

There are profile settings to disable avatars and signatures in the "Looks and Layout Preferences" section.

An alternative would be a plugin - if available - for your browser to either block specific images as needed or only cycle animated graphics once or twice rather than a continuous loop.

+1

I rarely have any connection problems due to animated gifs in posts, but if I did I'd just have firefox block them.

Edit - Actually now that I look all of the avatars I'm seeing are uploaded to this site and seem to be hosted here rather than being hotlinked.  If that's right then blocking them via firefox would block all avatars.

[majorvices]

I personally hate animated avatars. I'll ask the bosses and see what they think.

[blatz]

FWIW, I believe you can hit ESC to stop the animation.  Granted you have to do that on every page, but in the meantime, it may be helpful to you.

[majorvices]

I think there should be a file size limit on Avatars. Some animation is fine as long is it is simple. I requested this from our Admins.

[denny]

Seems like a good idea to me....we just need to figure out how to implement it.

[denny]

Would somebody point out a couple of the avatars that are causing problems so we can figure out what to do?

[Hokerer]

Not technically an "avatar" since it's in the "signature" but this one messes me up (sigs ought to be limited to one or two lines).

[majorvices]

I'm on dial-up so just about any of them except the most inanely simply bog me down. Don't make me go look for them - that's torture.

I will say, there are not many yet. The "batman" (not sure the user) one takes a good 30-45 seconds to load for me though. No offense meant to the owners of those avatars, and I don't want to get people pissed off at the forum, but I think a file size limit on avatars is a smart thing to impose for everyone.

[denny]

I wonder just how effective a file size limit would be.  For instance, the coconut tree above is under 30K.

[glitterbug]

Let the user decide what they want. All browsers should have an option to disable animated gifs.

Firefox:
   In a new tab type about:config in the address bar and press enter
   In the filter field type animation
   In the results listed double-click on image.animation_mode
   In the pop-up box type in one of the following:
          * none — will prevent image animation
          * normal (default) — will allow it to play over and over

Opera:
  press F12
  unselect Enable GIF animation

Internet Explorer:
  go to Internet Options < Advanced < Multimedia
  unselect Play animations in web pages

[denny]

Great info, glitterbug!

[majorvices]

I wonder just how effective a file size limit would be.  For instance, the coconut tree above is under 30K.

That one loads quickly for me. Some of the ones over at B3 never load. Personally, I'm not dead set one way or another. A lot of forums have file size limits on their avatars, some don't allow animated gifs.

The "let the user decide" thing is fine, I'm on Safari and I'll have to poke around to see what options I have.