Gallery photos on front page

[ClaremontPhoto]

The front page design has changed slightly in the past day or so.

The large ad in the middle has gone.

But the 'random' photos, about four or five, that used to be there have not made a comeback. Can we have them again please?

[jaapv]

Yes this is the second thread asking for that! Please, Jorge??? :angel: :angel: :angel:

[Brian Sweeney]

Every so often RFF goes through tremendous slow-downs and acts like it has screeched to a halt. One of those "Slow Again" threads popped up. I suspect Jorge tuned the site to speed it up, and that often means losing the random gallery images.

I would prefer the discussion pages coming up as quickly as possible and visiting the Gallery to see images.

[ClaremontPhoto]

No, Jorge didn't "tune the site".

This is off-the-shelf bulletin board software written in PHP and the slowdown happens when the database is being rebuilt by mySQL.

[Brian Sweeney]

http://www.rangefinderforum.com/forums/showthread.php?p=235626#post235626

Jorge sets the parameters for the software. In the past, he has removed the random images to get the site moving faster. He made some changes to the site's configuration to speed it up, but did not elaborate.

[jaapv]

Jorge is the boss. It is just that I liked the random images. One cannot view all galleries, life is too short.

[ClaremontPhoto]

The random images give a reason to come every day. We like that feature.

[Brian Sweeney]

It would be nice to have a page set up for just Random images. Like a "forum" link, but all random images. Jorge has had to cut down on some features as the size of RFF has grown. He has cut down on number of images displayed on the gallery page because of bandwidth demands. Also, the maximum size and level of JPEG compression has taken its toll on the gallery images over the past two years.

[ClaremontPhoto]

Four or five random images is not a lot of bandwidth.

[Brian Sweeney]

Apparently it is enough bandwidth that Jorge cut down on the number of images displayed on the Gallery page, random and most-recently loaded. We used to have a lot more than what is displayed now. I suspect that many more people open the home page than the gallery page. I guess it all adds up. But, this is up to Jorge and he pays the bills.

[ClaremontPhoto]

Jorge pays the bills: it really is not much money.

Jorge collects the income fom the advertisers (some people call tham 'sponsors'): sweet.

And Jorge needs us here, regular visitors, to keep the advertisers here: but not at the expense of the ad for a leather camera strap or case taking away the space where a friend's random photo may have been otherwise.