Slow, Jittery or Lagging drawing of the weather graphs

The quick fix: If you just want it "fixed", and don't care how or why, click here to restore the old graphs . (Note: this won't work if you use "Incognito" or "Private" " browsing ).

Primarily we've found this to affect some FireFox and Internet Explorer 9, 10 or 11 browsers, or some browers on slow computers.

Why would they be slow, and what changed to make them slow?

We created the new HD (high definition) graphs for two reasons:

1) They are HD - they look much better

2) They are smaller and faster. Literally 1/10th of the size so they use less of your bandwidth and draw quicker. All good so far.

We did extensive testing and found that the new HD graphs crash phones, so we disabled them completely for phones & tablets.

Which leaves laptops & desktop computers. Some FireFox browsers and some versions of Internet Explorer 11 are really slow at drawing them; depending on your actual computer.

So what can you do about it?

Option 1) U se a faster browser. Firefox/IE just don't draw HD graphs very quickly. Chrome and Safari do. We find Chrome is the fastest at most things; certainly this site. You can get Chrome from Google here .

Option 2) Restore the old low-quality graphs by clicking here to pre-select bitmap graph images. If you change your mind and want the HD graphs back, click "Activate HD" at the bottom of the graphs page.

If you use option 2, and you're a fan of "Incognito" or "Private" browsing, then it will revert when you exit your browser (which is the point of incognito browsing). Read down the bottom on how to create a bookmark to make it persist.

Slow rendering on mobiles

Phone & Tablet browsers have an option to "Request Desktop Site", and when this option is turned on, your phone tells our website it's a big powerful computer, so we give it data for a big powerful computer.

As you can guess, sometimes it can't handle it, so if you're experiencing poor or slow rendering on your mobile, please do check that you have "Request Desktop Site" turned off.

What's the difference between the Bitmaps and the HD graphs?

Bitmaps (like photos) are pre-built on our servers, and delivered directly to your browser, and all browsers render them fast. The main challenge is that creating a really high quality bitmap (e.g. consider somebody with a 4K monitor) it takes a lot of data which means longer download times.

SVG (scalable vector graphics) are a series of drawing instructions - we deliver the drawing instructions and your browser draws them on your computer. Fast, lightweight, and looks great! SVG will draw at premium HD quality regardless of the display size. 200pixels to 4000pixels, as their name suggests, they are "scalable".

Switches for geeks

Adding "/bitmap" to any weather Url will force it to deliver bitmaps.

e.g.

www.seabreeze.com.au/weather/wind-forecast/perth

becomes

www.seabreeze.com.au/weather/wind-forecast/perth/bitmap

Other options include:

Adding "/alwaysBitmap" to any weather Url will force it to deliver bitmaps, and save a setting indicating you always want to see bitmaps.

Adding "/autoFormat" to any weather Url remove the above setting.

Links:

Force Bitmaps: www.seabreeze.com.au/weather/settings/bitmap

Unforce Bitmaps: www.seabreeze.com.au/weather/settings/autoFormat