What's up with how my site loads? If you go to

www.lcaero.com

you'll see that it doesn't load instantly like every other website. Is that just how VSD works? Is there something I can do to change the way it loads? I'm thinking of a switch to Dreamweaver if there is no fix.

Your page loads the way it does because everything on the page is made up of images. This includes the text on the lighter blue background, all of which is a fairly large jpg image.
Images will always load slower than regular text because of the file size.

So this is not about the program but, rather, about how you choose to use the program to structure your page.
If you had included the text as "regular text", instead of an image, the page would have appeared to load "instantly".

Visual looks good but should be done using a background image without text and using text for content. That way the visually impaired who use screen readers can use your aircraft repair service, too.

I noticed that the text on your home page is in a non-rectangular container - presumably that's why you used images for text?

I have thought of using irregularly shaped containers myself but as far as I know there's no way to do that with HTML text, everything seems to be in boxes whether it's a table cell or a <div> container.
I suppose it allows the container to expand when necessary to hold the text (especially if the person reading the stuff increases the text size in their browser), but irregular shapes would still be nice to have for some things.

I believe all containers in a webpage are of a regular rectangular shape no matter if they are built using css or (cough) table cells. And there are ways to wrap the text for the desired effect. Check out these cool effects.

http://meyerweb.com/eric/css/edge/curvelicious/demo.html

http://meyerweb.com/eric/css/edge/slantastic/demo.html

Disclaimer: I realize that the Op is using VSD and the effects really won't help much in this case but I thought I would still share the links for everyone’s benefit, like it or not.

I've been wondering if the way lcaero.com loads is a VSD issue or a general issue that would remain even if I tried Dreamweaver. Any suggestions?

The site does have a lot of jpeg files. I found that it's easier to edit the site elsewhere with the page eventually ending up in Photoshop. From there, I use the Picture Tool in VSD to load the page onto the site.

I've been accepting of the way the site loads until recently when I read a comment about it wondering if our server was a Commodore 64. How embarrassing.

The idea that the irregular shapes are an issue is an interesting one. However, I like them. They're unusual. Also, having used the Shapes Tool for the buttons, they load the same way as the larger jpeg images.

If I use a more sophisticated program -- Dreamweaver -- will the site load faster?

The program you use won't change what you upload to the site - images are images in Dreamweaver just as they are in CC VSD.

Re-read Per's post:


Most people won't give a website more than a second or so to load, they'll just move on to the next site in their search. Sometimes we need to think about appealing to potential customers over satisfying our own artistic preferences

The difference between the 2 programs would most likely be that DW won't force images to be created and so many of them etc. VSD while being an awesome program, and works fantastically does tend to turn some text things into images, and this can lead to a little slower loading site (just my guess here this is not concrete evidence lol).

My question is, if you have the knowledge and ability to use something like DW, why are you using a visual program when DW can do both? Unless it's like mine and a very old version that hates half the images I try to use these days lol. Why not try the HTML Editor also and see how that works for you if you're able to code also

I guess that's a big part of the problem. I don't have the knowledge to do the site in HTML.

I've played around with Adobe Flash CS4, found it pretty intuitive, and thought DW might be the same.