Hi everyone 
Recently, there's been a growing number of members on XOC who have been using animated gifs in their sigs and/or as their avatars. They've all been very nice to see but I've also been noticing that the file sizes of people's sigs/avatars have been increasing.
I realize that a lot of the time people might not realize sometimes how the size of animations and other graphics can add up and it can be easy to go over that limit without realizing it. So I wanted to take a moment to inform, and hopefully help, so that it's easier for you, as a member, to spot when your sig + avatar might be over the limit and remedy it.
(Copying this to the Xena Scrolls, too, so it gets more views.)
Aurora
Administrator
Recently, there's been a growing number of members on XOC who have been using animated gifs in their sigs and/or as their avatars. They've all been very nice to see but I've also been noticing that the file sizes of people's sigs/avatars have been increasing.
I realize that a lot of the time people might not realize sometimes how the size of animations and other graphics can add up and it can be easy to go over that limit without realizing it. So I wanted to take a moment to inform, and hopefully help, so that it's easier for you, as a member, to spot when your sig + avatar might be over the limit and remedy it.
- We currently have a limit of 350KB for a combined file size between
signature and avatar (this might be changing to something a bit larger--I will let everyone know if/when that happens). For now, though, this is the limit,
give or take. (20 or 30k over is fine but try to keep it as close as possible to the limit)
The limit is mainly in place so that threads load faster for people, especially people on slower connections. Lots of image files and animations can potentially bog down the loading of a page, causing it to take longer to load. - Basically, the more frames you have in an animation gif, the larger (generally) the file size will be.
- A note about posting your images within Yuku Images
-
- Yuku increases the size of your animated gif files. It can increase a file sometimes twice (or more) than
what it was when it was originally created, thus pushing the signature size over the limit. This has been a real hassle and annoyance but it's how it
is until a fix by Yuku is made.
Example: My Gabrielle gif I'm using as my avatar right now is listed on my computer as 164KB. The file that shows up in Yuku is 208KB. - To avoid the problem of animated gifs growing in size, any animations you want to use in your signature, I suggest you link to an external photo
sharing website like photobucket.
- Avatars are, unfortunately, only hosted through Yuku (you can't link externally to your avatars) so this is important to keep in mind when uploading animated gifs as avatars and to always check the size after the upload. The sizes of them can easily increase.
- Yuku increases the size of your animated gif files. It can increase a file sometimes twice (or more) than
what it was when it was originally created, thus pushing the signature size over the limit. This has been a real hassle and annoyance but it's how it
is until a fix by Yuku is made.
- How to check the size of your files
-
- Simply right click on the image and choose properties from the menu. It will display the size of your image.
- Simply right click on the image and choose properties from the menu. It will display the size of your image.
(Copying this to the Xena Scrolls, too, so it gets more views.)
Aurora
Administrator
i still
celebrate.... 
opps
//PLA's Official
Annoying People Deflector Staffer 
