Our April 4, 2013 template release will include a feature called "lazy loading" that's designed to improve page download times and reduce bandwidth usage.
Normally, when you visit a web page, every image is downloaded when the page loads. On a lengthy page requiring lots of vertical scrolling to view in its entirety, this means that the initial load time is much longer than it needs to be. You may also be wasting time and bandwidth downloading images you'll never view because you're likely to click a link that interests you before you ever scroll to the bottom of the page.
Lazy loading solves this problem by requesting images only when they enter your browser's active, viewable area. As you scroll down the page, code in the BLOX CMS template instructs your browser to fetch the appropriate image files from our servers.
The effect is subtle, it's likely that you won't see a difference when surfing your site. If you see images popping into view at the bottom of the window as you scroll, that's lazy loading in action.
What you probably will notice is speedier page load times.
On initial release, lazy loading will be enabled by default for the following block templates:
Core Asset Index Main Index
Core Asset Index Gallery Lead
Core Asset Index Headline List
Core Asset Index Photo Announcements
Core Asset Index Lead Side Headlines
Core Asset Index Lead Presentation
Core Asset Index Minilist
(Editor's note: In BLOX CMS lingo, an "asset" is any type of editorial content. Articles, images, videos, etc., are all assets.)
In the coming months, the feature will be activated for more block templates, further improving load times and reducing bandwidth use.
