Strange forum web page behavior

[datro]

Recently I've noticed when navigating from one page in the forum to another (e.g. clicking on a new thread to read), a very brief "flash" of a gray page appears to be followed by the new page.  It's very quick, but also very annoying.  To my eyes it's like having a strobe go off in between pages.  I see this with various browsers (FireFox, Internet Explorer, etc.) on the forum site so I don't think it is the browser.  What's up with that?  Have you modified the forum design in some way to cause this?  If so, please find a way to get rid of the gray flash.  My eyes will thank you.

P.S.  This does not seem to occur on the regular LuLa pages, only on the forum pages.

[pcgpcg]

I see it too, now that you mention it. I really hadn't notice it before so it isn't bothersome to me.

[Farmer]

It's the way the page is coded.  The underlying background colour is grey.  That loads first and fast, then everything else loads and is formatted on top of it.  A touch of latency from the webserver or the path from it to your browser, and there's enough delay from the background to the content loading that you get that flash.  Ironically, computers with more powerful graphics rendering are probably likely to see it more :-)

[datro]

Yes, I agree it is a result of how the page is coded.  But this didn't use to happen.  I've been noticing it for a while now, but I finally got annoyed by it enough to post about it.  I suspect some change was made to the forum pages to maybe fix some other problem and this flashing is perhaps a by-product of that change.  Whatever the case, it need not be that way.  I've never seen this kind of visual annoyance on a web site elsewhere on the 'net, so I think something is amiss.

[debra.fadely]

Hi All. I asked our tech group about this and they said they've seen it happen on Firefox more than any other browser. Also, they recommended that if you see this happening you could clear your cache and reboot the browser and see if that helps.

[Patricia Sheley]

Datro,
your quote,
"like having a strobe go off..." brought to mind a bit of information that may or may not interest you.  I have sent you a PM. Thanks
Patricia

[Christopher Sanderson]

Readers may now note a softer & gentler fade in ))

Preference?

[Rado]

My preference is no fade in/out or any other animation crap. What's the point? How does it improve the experience? This is forum, we come here to read text not to go ooh and aah at visual effects.

[Patricia Sheley]

Hi Chris,
 I have been aware of the "pass between", but for me has not been an issue, I suppose because the same flicks of changed luminosity in my periphery usually mean an owl, or eagle or artic gull checking me out overhead. Without that recognition I would otherwise miss some of the amazing wildlife moving, especially in this season alongshore but surroundind often on two and a half or three sides be spruce or cedar forest along the margins. The flickers in my life I perceive as gifts as I was at one point headed down the road of macular degeneration which took my father's sight. I perceive all light in all its iterations as precious.
Nice to see you~
p.

[datro]

Readers may now note a softer & gentler fade in ))

Preference?

Hi Chris,

Well, it's softer but still annoying.  While I really appreciate the quick response and the LuLa team's effort to address this, I don't see why there has to be any intermediate loading of a gray page at all, whether it is a flash or a fade in/out.  This is not typical web page behavior...I have done a brief survey of various web sites around the 'net and I don't see anything like this (using FireFox or any other browser).

If you've been able to make it softer, then that means you seem to know where in the code it is happening.  Also, this is a fairly recent phenomenon, so something has changed to cause it.  I think the odds are there has been a change in the web page coding, and my conclusion is that it is NOT for the better.  I agree with Rado....keep it simple and focus on ease of reading and using the site.  Fancy stuff isn't necessary on a forum board.  My two cents . . .

Thanks,
Dave

[Farmer]

Set it back to quick, please, Chris.  Get it over with (I knew it was there before, but it never bothered me), making it "soft" just makes it more obvious :-)

BTW, FF and IE both the same in terms of the effect.  But it's hardly unique to this site - it's pretty common, actually.

[Jan K.]

I thought, it was my chrome getting (even) slower... this is ridiculous. Pointless. And not adding anything but annoyance...

How would you like your camera's menu behaving like this? 

Please make it snappy again!

[Christopher Sanderson]

Snappy again! Back to the way it was.

[datro]

After a bit more research (and as sggested by Farmer), it appears that this "flash" or "flicker" behavior when navigating web pages has been reported more and more lately by users around the 'net.  It is NOT unique to a specific browser, though some browsers may be more susceptible to the problem depending on design and internal handling of the data from the server.  I've now tried various versions of Firefox, Internet Explorer, Microsoft Edge, and Google Chrome here on this forum and ALL of these browsers exhibit the problem.  An additional data point is that it does not always happen when navigating to a new page.  I've not been able to find a pattern, but sometimes the new page loads cleanly without any flash.  I'd say for me about 85% of the time I get the gray flash on the LuLa forum site.  It could simply be related to variances in available network bandwidth, server performance, and browser performance from moment to moment.  What IS clear to me is that the problem is more noticeable on the LuLa forum site than anywhere else.  In fact, I've never really noticed it anywhere else.

Reports on the 'net indicate that the problem results from performance issues in how the browser is processing the HTML, images, CSS, Javascript, etc. that is coming from the server.  A common issue apparently is that the browsers are trying to render the page before the full style sheet has been downloaded.

I know that the gray flash is coming from the LuLa SMF theme which has a dark gray default background.  Have you considered testing a change of background color of the LuLa SMF theme to match the predominant light yellow-ish gray being used for the forum pages?  That way you would reduce the jarring effect of dark -> light transition which is the most annoying aspect of this problem when loading a new page.  And FWIW here's a list of suggested ways to address the "flashing" problem that I came across while researching:

    Enable Compression on the Tomcat server (or whatever server is being used)
    Implement Caching Filter
    Dividing the pages in Divs
    Including the Java Scripts at the end of the page
    Setting the Background color on Body of java server pages
    Put Style Sheets at the top in java server pages
    Remove duplicate scripts in java server pages
    Ensure that pages have only one DOCTYPE, HTML, Head and Body tags
    Use GET in place of POST for fetching data requests

I'm just trying to help with ideas here, not trying to tell you how to run the site.  I'm hoping that you will continue to look at making some improvement on this if possible.

Thanks

[datro]

More suggestions to the LuLa web developers on how to fix this problem:

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/12358087/flashing-between-page-loads

[Kevin Raber]

We have addressed this as best as we can. I do believe the so-called flash is now minimized or gone as best as can be. The Forum as you must know is a third party app we have been using for years.  There is only so much that can be done in setting that we can use and code we can access. 

[Telecaster]

I thought the fading effect was cool. Bring it back! 

-Dave-

[Christopher Sanderson]

I thought the fading effect was cool. Bring it back! 

-Dave-

  No