Auto-pre-load of Tab Content - required or up to Dev?

  • gs
    • 857 posts
    July 31, 2017 5:34 PM EDT

    RE: Tab blocks dragged from Available Blocks to Page Block Placement in LE

    When a page is loaded, data is often (always?) pre-loaded into Tabs.

    Q#01: Is this always preloaded when a page is loaded?

    Q#02: Must this be preloaded (i.e. does SE Require this) or is it up to the Developer of the particular Content Tab to decide?

    I ask the above because when there's more Content Tabs and content in the Tabs, pages load more slowly (obviously - more http requests and or database retrievals).  Although this makes subsequent display of Tabs quick for the User (from a UX/UI perspective) the initial load often 'looks bad' from a UX/UI perspective.

    Thanks.

    • Moderator
    • 6923 posts
    August 1, 2017 5:04 AM EDT

    Screenshot please

  • gs
    • 857 posts
    August 1, 2017 12:44 PM EDT

     

    So for example, if you have 10 tabs each with 10 items in it, then obviously http requests and database access is required at some point for the Content in the Tabs.  That's a lot of http requests and database access just for one page load (besides all the other stuff on the page of course). 

  • gs
    • 857 posts
    August 9, 2017 3:26 PM EDT

    Does anyone know for sure (i.e. not guessing) if Pre-Loading Tab data is a requirement/standard specification for SE, or is this up to the Developer of the Tab?

    • 629 posts
    September 9, 2017 3:47 AM EDT

    Yes, the preloading of tabs happens regardless of whether they're used or not used. They are treated as if the tab container itself does not exist. It actually adds extra overhead to have tab containers due to this reason. And as such, is the main reason why I don't use them for my site.

  • gs
    • 857 posts
    September 9, 2017 3:27 PM EDT

    Thanks Elshara for the answer.  I was hoping for a way to not pre-load so much content but rather a setting (ADMINcp?  per Tab?) for whether or not to pre-load the data.  It often seems like a waste of resources to load so much content when much of it may not even be viewed.  One of the Plugins I use is for google docs and it preloads the entire documents into Tabs (image a business with 20 documents all 1Mb each - that's obviously 20Mb downloading every time the page is loaded; fortunately the 3PD is planning on changing this in the future).  I may create an FR for this - to allow this selecting per Tab (not container, but per Tab - so if there are 15 tabs, ADMIN may decide which to pre-load and which to load after selecting the Tab).