Preloading and AOL..

[Jagoff]

I'm just beginning to learn HTML and am using a WYSIWYG editor to help me get up and going.

Anyway, for navigation I am using an imagemap with 5 hotspots. All images are preloaded at the time of page load.

When I view the page in IE, everything works fine, but when viewed in AOL there is a major delay and server access when it comes time for the mouse rollovers to occur. If I press back, in the browser, and then forward again, the page(in AOL) behaves normally. The rollover shows no sign of delay. If I reload the page, the delay comes back.

It seems that the AOL browser is loading the graphics but not allowing them to be accessed correctly. Only after the backward/forward trick does it work correctly.

I have yet to test the page in Netscape.

Here's the page:

http://www.geocities.com/bratorange/..._mainpage.html

Any tips would be helpful and please note that if you are using broadband, the delay will probably be negligible. I've tested it, in AOL, only on a 56K connection.

[ShrineDesigns]

you can try removing the preloader and openning the images in a editor and reduce the colors in the image to the minimum. this works great with gifs with just a few colors.

Or you can remove the preloader and do nothing to the images their sizes are not too large to cause a huge delay.

[Jagoff]

My images' internal palette only have 4 colors: White, black, orange, and the light tan color. The actual images' filesize are around 5 or 6 K each and there are 6 of them including the initial unaltered one.

Unfortunetely, removing the preload code will cause a delay on 56K or slower connections(and yes there are still those who are using sub-56K modems).

As I stated in my initial post, this seems to be an AOL hiccup of some sort since the page loads perfectly in IE and assuming Netscape(I'll tackle that later if it doesn't).

The images are preloading, but AOL won't display the rollovers, delay-free, unless I hit back, then forward in the AOL browser. It's like there's something holding them back.

I have visited other sites with a similar navigation system, and they operate flawlessly. This is Dreamweaver code, by the way.

Any observations would be appreciated.