14.8. Download StatisticsRemember the joke that WWW really stands for "World Wide Wait"? Even as more and more people upgrade to speedy DSL and cable modems, file size is the constant foe of the Web designer. What takes only a moment to load from your computer's hard drive could take minutes to travel across the Internet. The more information you put into a Web page, the more time it takes to load. You can judge how big your page is, and therefore how long it will take to download, by looking at the download stats in the status bar at the bottom of the document window. You'll see something like this: 5k/2 sec . This term indicates the file size of the Web page and how long it will take a visitor to download the page using a 56 Kbps modem. Unfortunately, the behavior of this once helpful feature has changed. In previous versions of Dreamweaver, the file size and download time took into account linked files like images, external CSS style sheets, and Flash movies. This information provided a realistic picture of download speed, since not only does a page have to download, but any files that page uses (like a photo) also need to travel across the Internet to a visitor's browser. Dreamweaver 8 now shows only the actual size of the HTML file, which frequently is much smaller than bandwidth-hogging graphics or Flash movies. In other words, the statistic's pretty much useless, so don't bother paying attention to it (though file this bit of information away for your next Dreamweaver Trivia Challenge nightyou're sure to win). Note: People hate to wait. You may think that the graphic design of your Web site is so compelling that even if it takes a full minute to download that zippy new Flash home page, people will stick around.Think again. Research shows that 10 seconds is the maximum amount of time that someone stays focused on a task while waiting. That means if you're designing a Web site for people with 56 Kbps modems, keep your pages below about 45 KB.
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