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GEOBUILDER TIPS AND TRICKS
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DEALING WITH SLOW REACTION TIME
Since patience is the key to success with GeoBuilder, my first tip is about exactly that. As your page gets bigger, GeoBuilder gets proportionately slower...it's a linear thing. So, while your waiting for Mr. Websmith to complete your last input - take notes, organize your notes, feed the cat. Do not try to do anything else with your page until he's done. I do little blocks of housework or read mail while I'm waiting. Hey, if GeoBuilder was any faster, I wouldn't have such a clean house. :)
One way to deal with the slow reaction time is to use Netscape as your browser to access GeoBuilder. It is a fact that GeoBuilder doesn't work too well with any version of Internet Explorer, so why not download Netscape Navigator 4.6 and try it with GeoBuilder? Having two different browsers is handy in a lot of ways.
Another way to get the best performance from GeoBuilder is to work on your pages during the off-hours and avoid the peak hours when the GeoCities :traffic" is the heaviest. I find that, for me, the best hours are very, very early in the morning Pacific Standard Time. Late at night is good, too. When too many people are using the GeoBuilder servers at the same time, GeoBuilder has trouble accessing your file directory. That's where all the JavaScript and other errors come from.
PAGE LOAD TIME ON THE INTERNET
If you have ever done a View Source on a GeoBuilder page, you have seen that GeoBuilder's code format uses a lot of table data. All the td width and colspan stuff is due to the random placement of objects on a GeoBuilder page. You can't put objects and text just anywhere you want it on a standard HTML page the way you can on a GeoBuilder page. This freedom of object arrangement is one of GeoBuilder's best features, but the price we pay is pages with tons of extra code that makes our pages load slower for people accessing them on the internet.

There are ways to minimize the amount of time it takes your GeoBuilder pages to load:
Limit the size of your pages. Don't put too much on one page. It is better to break a potentially large page up into two or three pages and link them together in logical sequence.
Don't put too many graphics on a page. You can put quite a few graphics on a GeoBuilder page, if they are reasonably simple or small. High-resolution graphics, animated graphics, and large graphics make a page load really slow. If you want to put photos on your site, create thumbnails of each photo and put the thumbnails on your page with a link to the full-size graphic that people can click on. The ThingWorld Things are great fun, but limit them to one or two per page. Same with the Gadgets.
Save your page often. There's nothing more devastating than to spend two hours working on a page then lose everything because GeoBuilder froze up or your server reset. I save every 15 minutes or so.
Use EZ Upload in the File Manager to upload graphics, not the Upload in GeoBuilder. The Upload in GeoBuilder often distorts the graphic, so you have to delete it and then put it on the page with the Graphics button. This is a lot of wasted time. I've noticed that the GeoBuilder uploads work better if you let the "Upload Successful" window sit there a while before clicking OK. Also, gif files are more likely to upload successfully than jpg files. Don't ask me why.
Do some research before asking someone for help. You learn so much more this way, believe me! Read a tutorial site (like mine) thoroughly. Sure, it takes time to do this, but it saves you sooo much time down the road.
JAVASCRIPT AND OTHER ERRORS
95% of all the errors experienced by GeoBuilder users are Internet Explorer- and Windows 98-specific. Download Netscape Navigator and lose the errors.
More to come!
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