Timing options

By default, a page's contents are displayed by the browser as soon as they arrive from the server. However this isn't always desirable, and the Timing tab in Settings allow you to vary this:

Delayed display

Sometimes it is desirable to delay the display of some of the contents by a few seconds.

For example, this is useful:

• To force users to focus on advertising before the main page content is displayed.
• To draw attention to new content after the user has been looking at the page for a while.

In the Behavior Editor, you can control the delay before the page body is displayed.
You can also set independent delays for each Layout Element Zone, via the Configuration dialog for the Zone.

Fades

In addition to specifying when the content should appear, you can specify a fade-in duration over which time the content will appear.

Limitations of fades
Some content does not support fades, in which case the content will appear when specified and the the rest of the content will fade in around it. (This applies mainly to embedded objects, and, in IE, content styled with position:relative). Fly-out navigation will fade in, but not be available for flying-out during the fade.

Hiding content

You can also set a time for the content to disappear, and you can also set this to be instant or to fade out over a period.

When content is not shown (ie before it is set to appear, or after it is set to dissapear) the space is taken up with the page background color.

Units

All durations are specified in seconds, or parts thereof.

(If the timing for dissapearing would overlap or preceed the settings for appearing, the dissapearing action will happen as soon as the content has appeared)

Redirection

You can specify that the page redirects elsewhere after a period.

If you set up a timing redirect, but need to temporarily disable it (for example, if you set one up on the Login page and so can no longer log in), browse to the page with the querystring parameter redirect=no

Typical uses:

• Redirecting from a landing page to the homepage of a site
• Providing interstitial advertising before redirecting to the 'content' page.
• Auto-refreshing a page (but see the warning note below)
• Creating a slideshow (by Refreshing to the 'Next Page' in site)
• Forcing a Form to be submitted within a limited period, or not at all (ie for timed examinations)

Beware of setting a loop – it is quite permissible to set the page to redirect to itself. There is nothing wrong in this, just beware of the bandwidth usage and server loading this can cause as each unattended browser looking at the page will refresh the page continually every so many seconds.