daveo
April 14th, 2004, 10:36 AM
Alright, I'm sure at least two of you have converted from some horrible browser to Mozilla. Then from Mozilla to Firefox. I found a little tip yesterday that makes Firefox render pages even faster than it currently does :eek:
By default Firefox will wait 250ms after the initial response from a webserver before it starts rendering the page. It expects that during those 250ms it's still getting data in. Since it doesn't have all it's data, why both trying to draw yet?
Well the reason is simple! Most computers (modern ones, anyway) are fast enough, or have a fast enough internet connection, that 250ms is an eternity!
To change or eliminate this setting type 'about:config' in the location bar and press [Enter]. When that comes up there will be a 'Filter' box, type 'nglayout' in there. You should now see an entry for 'nglayout.initialpaint.delay' with a value of 250. Double-click on that line and you'll get a pop-up letting you change the value. Try setting it to zero. Changes take effect immediately.
At this point you can pop open a new window (or tab) and browse around to your favorite sites. They should draw much more quickly than before. You'll also see more of (I think this is cool) the redraw that browsers do. If your machine is older (much older) this may end up taking more time than 250ms. In that case, just change it back using the same procedure as above.
If you haven't tried Firefox yet, give it a shot at mozilla.org ('http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/'). It's got a built-in smart pop-up blocker and loads of other features. It's worth a try and it's much more secure than IE :)
Any web devlopers that don't use it really should have it installed. It's very standards compliant: if it renders correctly in Firefox, it should render correctly anywhere. There's also a nice JavaScript debugger and a DOM inspector.
By default Firefox will wait 250ms after the initial response from a webserver before it starts rendering the page. It expects that during those 250ms it's still getting data in. Since it doesn't have all it's data, why both trying to draw yet?
Well the reason is simple! Most computers (modern ones, anyway) are fast enough, or have a fast enough internet connection, that 250ms is an eternity!
To change or eliminate this setting type 'about:config' in the location bar and press [Enter]. When that comes up there will be a 'Filter' box, type 'nglayout' in there. You should now see an entry for 'nglayout.initialpaint.delay' with a value of 250. Double-click on that line and you'll get a pop-up letting you change the value. Try setting it to zero. Changes take effect immediately.
At this point you can pop open a new window (or tab) and browse around to your favorite sites. They should draw much more quickly than before. You'll also see more of (I think this is cool) the redraw that browsers do. If your machine is older (much older) this may end up taking more time than 250ms. In that case, just change it back using the same procedure as above.
If you haven't tried Firefox yet, give it a shot at mozilla.org ('http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/'). It's got a built-in smart pop-up blocker and loads of other features. It's worth a try and it's much more secure than IE :)
Any web devlopers that don't use it really should have it installed. It's very standards compliant: if it renders correctly in Firefox, it should render correctly anywhere. There's also a nice JavaScript debugger and a DOM inspector.