Fig. 21  Dreamweaver estimates how long your site will take to load over a 28.8-Kbps modem.
 
 

Changing the Estimate You can change this estimate in Dreamweaver's preferences. From the Document window menu bar, select Edit > Preferences. The Preferences dialog box will appear. In the Category box at the left, choose Status Bar. The Status Bar panel will move to the front (Figure 22). To have Dreamweaver estimate download size at a modem speed other than 28.8, select it from the Connectoin Speed drop-down menu. Click on OK to save the changes to the preferences and close the Preferences dialog box. Fig. 22

Faster! Faster!

The single biggest complaint about the Web is that most pages take forever to load. I'm not being scientific here, but I'd bet that most site bloat is due to one of two things:

• Designers who never leave the comfort zone of the T3 and the 17-inch monitor.

• People who never get feedback on their sites. This could be the guy who just loads up his site and the public be damned! Or it could be the lone Web designer at a big company who just gets everything rubberstamped by the starry-eyed marketeers without review by anyone who actually knows anything about the Web.

To find out how long your site takes to load:

1. First, look at the figure in the status bar of the Document window (Figure 21). No one will wait 30 seconds for a page to load, and some people won't wait 10. Remember that this is only an estimate.

2. Put a beta version up on the Web somewhere hidden from view (see Creating a Beta Site).

3. Go offsite, fire up a browser, and download the pages over a 28.8-Kbps modem. Would you wait that long?

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