This mistake began as an inspired update to my pages driven by an idea from a reader. They desired a way to peruse my site’s archive graphically. Towards this end, I created a visual archive from a photo page and some well placed hyperlinked boxes.

Well, just as will happen sometimes, a flash of brilliance was marred by a minor mistake! After completing the page, I wanted to add little indicators so that there’s a visual way for viewers to determine what neat little downloadables may be on a page (keeping with the whole visual theme). So, I utilized Keynote to create the indicator icons and simply copy and pasted them into iWeb. Everything was fine, really. Visually, there was nothing wrong with the page.

However, I was bothered by the fact that I was using the same images multiple times and each one was loading into the browser window individually. Surely, I should be able to create the images in such a way that I’d only need to load an icon once for all the same kind of icons on a page.

Wouldn’t you know it, the solution was just one Preview Passthru away! Whenever you place an image into iWeb, as long as it doesn’t have to get rendered before publishing (if it’s a .gif, .jpg, or .png with no transformations applied as in rotation, opacity, etc.) then it gets placed into a common folder in your website that all other instances of that graphic pulls from. So, I took the indicator icons, Preview Passthru’d ‘em to .png’s, and placed them on the page making sure they were at their original size and full opacity. Each time I duplicated an icon, the duplicate’s name in the inspector was the same as the original! I published, checked the page and, as you’ll see now, that page has fewer images since the indicators all load once and duplicate themselves as needed. Fewer images loaded means less stuff to download which means a faster site!

Think of my mistake when you’re using the same images repeatedly and maybe this tip will help you, too!

Also, think of my mistake when you’re using the same images repeatedly and maybe this tip will help you, too!