Due to site testing tools suggested in another post there are now two topics I'm chasing too improve load times. I am so easily sidetracked when discovering things like this.
I was very happy with my sites performance improvements after learning about mod_deflate in Apache and now this. My personality flaw is akin to a dog on a bone and until I lose the bone it's all I think of.
First suggestion from the test was use a CDN. This is easy enough; throw money around and problem solved.
But before earnestly messing with sprites it is better to stop and ask for an opinion and some advice. The tool at http://spritegen.website-performance.org/ sure makes it easy to generate the CSS for sprites, however I am unsure which items too include.
So has anyone implemented sprites in Marina or Slate? If so how many did you end up with?
Are sprites worth messing with? If understood correctly seems they are intended mainly for grouped navigation in either vertical or horizontal menus. Does their usefulness extend beyond and I am missing the point?
Thanks,
Jerry
Comments
You do not need a
Sprites is another way to reduce requests, but you must create a lot of styles and menu new. I would prefer it to plan a new theme with sprites. there is a module to create a sprite menu. haven't used it until yet. try it.
http://drupal.org/project/spritemenu
I used some sprites on my Site Jobs Düsseldorf.
How would I go about solving
How would I go about solving this myself on the server? Assign a new IP and store all image files there? Obviously forces another step when using CVS/SVN but maybe worth it.
I do not follow your meaning when you say "A CDN makes the same but with cost".
I looked into that module and felt the same; requires a lot of new styles. That prompted the post really. I wondered if admins were actually going through the paces for what may be a fractional performance enhancement.
Thanks for sharing your advice.
sprites for dates
Re: manogolf's question about the usefulness of this for other than straight horizontal/vertical menu type things, I saw a cool demo the other day of a sprite being used for the post date on a WP blog. Check this out:
http://css-tricks.com/date-display-with-sprites/
I really like this idea.
Re: sprites vs. CDN's, as I understand it, the whole point of using sprites is to increase performance via fewer hits to the server (less HTTP traffic) rather than increasing the speed of downloading individual graphics, so strictly speaking, you can't really compare this approach with the idea of using a CDN. They solve two different problems.
Cheers
Jennifer