Opt in higher quality images.
I've been thinking about a way to do this for a while. I think for myself and many other broadband users, the 50Kb/250Kb guidelines for file sizes are becoming increasingly restrictive. I run a 12Mb connection, and it's no big deal for me to download a page full of images that're around a meg. So here's my suggestion. In the user options there is a "Show bigsize pictures" option. Also, on the board, the users have a new kind of image tag, that would look something like this:

<imgbig src="sauce" width="wide" height="high" alt="alt text" />

The board software will only convert the imgbig tag to an img tag when the user has the "show big" option on. Otherwise the imgbig tag could be replaced with an anchor link, perhaps using the imgbig's alt text as the link text, and something generic like "CFB" if no link alt is offered.

With this implemented, we could have, on an opt in bases, up to 150Kb for regular images and up to 800Kb for animations, without alienating the 56kers, if there are any still around.
( MarkyH feels like the H in Bob Hoskins' name, Sun 4 Feb 2007, 17:55, Reply)