Possible cause offered for slow published page load

I created a page with 10 buttons (generated by Articulate) that has two text boxes and three low resolution JPEG images. There are also six layers, each with low resolution images and text. The page would take over 10 seconds to load in 360 Review, SCORM Cloud, and as a ZIP file uploaded to a website using the E-LearningFreak Articulate plugin. I have ruled out the server component as the cause of this problem because they all responded the same.

After exhaustive testing, this is what is happening and how I addressed it.

First, whenever SL generates a button (and its corresponding states), it renders out individual files for each button and all of its states, even if the buttons are all identical. This means that 10 buttons with 4 states generates 40 PNG files. Even though they are small, it takes time to load. To see for yourself, look in the "mobile" folder of the output and you will see dozens of the same PNG. (Editorial note to Staff: this is ridiculously inefficient!)

The solution was to manually generate JPEG files for each button state in Photoshop, create a button in SL by copying each JPEG into its respective state, and then duplicating the JPEG button for each of the other button items. This reduces the output rendering from 40 buttons to 4 because the JPEG items are considered Library items, which you will see listed as used 10 times each. (Yes, this is a problem if you use text inside your buttons.)

So if your page is loading suspiciously slow, chance are, it's a million buttons loading. To do a test, create a dummy copy of your project and strip out everything except the problematic page. Upload it to 360 Review and monitor the loading pulses. Then delete all the buttons, re-upload, and compare.