Image slices for entire page

<p>Hey everyone! I am working on revamping our website, and the design I have in my mind is fairly complex- I want a background image, but then I want to "layer" different bg images on top of it... I think I could do it using css and the "float" tag, but honestly, I don't know that much about it and I would probably spend more time figuring it out than actually designing the site and content. </p>

<p>I could do this easily with image slices and probably have it done by the end of the day. </p>

<p>What are the pro's and con's of using slices? Are there any cross browser issues? It doesn't seem like there would be, given that it is just a table, but somewhere I believe I read that tables are now frowned upon and using the absolute position in css is better. Again though, I would have to really do some studying to remember enough css to make it work. </p>

<p>Do you think using slices and a table is ok? </p>

<p>Thanks!</p>

<p>CSS is preferred because it lends itself to more flexible handling by various platforms (mobile browsers, etc). But you have to really know your CSS to make it work across the board.<br /><br />Tables, on the other hand, are still supported by any browser you're likely to care about, and will do the job. Unless you really know your CSS, you're best off using a template built by someone that's really tested it on all of the major operating systems, devices, and browsers. Others, get the job done, and go for the table.<br /><br />One other thing to remember, though: when you use image slices, you're asking the browser to make more requests from the web server (one for each image). That involves more overhead in the overall page rendering, and if there are too many of them, can also hurt page rank with folks like Google.</p>

<p>I thought about the browser request, but how many is too many? Also, we have a limited number of people "searching" for us- most are pointed directly to our page through other resources (we have a huge word of mouth following- been in business since 1968- and we have the school contracts for seniors in our county and the surrounding counties). So is SEO really a huge deal to us? I'm not really sure... I wouldn't ignore it, but I think I could sacrifice a little... We maybe book 10 extra jobs a year directly through our page, which are usually commercial (even though we don't advertise commercial work). </p>

<p>Anyway, my main question is how many requests are too many? Do you have any advice about what the whole page size should stay within? I believe I'm going to be looking at about 6-10 slices per page, and I think I can make a lot of my graphics transparent and use a bg color in the mark-up to eliminate some size, but what is a good target size for an overall page?</p>

<p>Thanks again</p>

 

<p>I don't think 6 to 10 is a problem, really. Not these days. But I'd try to keep the whole page load under 150Kb if possible.</p>

<p>Just make sure that your images are well optimized for web. For jpgs start with quality of 30 and keep adjusting it higher until you find the best compromise between file size and image quality.<br>

For the web images, the quality exchanged for speed won’t be noticed by users but the speed at which your website loads will.</p>

<p>150kb? That takes the fun out of web design!<br>

I just created my graphic design site similar to what it seems like you're describing. Try using CSS sprites (run a google search, there are some great tutorials) instead of image slicing where you can. Less images to load and easier to update.<br>

My new design site (work in progess)<br />http://design.jandjcreative.com </p>