How to handle those really awful "endlessly scrolling down" web pages?

[evamaria]

Does anybody know how to go far back within those tumblr "archives" that ain't e.g. 12 new photos on each new page, and where by this you can select page 124, by its number, within the address line, but which are made of just ONE, endlessly scrolling page? Let's say you want to see what they did publish there some 3 months ago... prob here, you'd have to scroll down, again and again, the same 1,000 or 1,500 photos, before even reaching the first photo you might be interested in! I won't give you response times for this in IE8, they are incredibly awful even for the first 500 such photos... but Chrome isn't THAT much better here on my system (with 2 GB of memory), so how to do it, or what to do alternatively, except for making a spider attack in the night?

I even thought of "hiding photos" when endlessly scrolling down, and then "unhide photos" after having scrolled down by a 1,000 photos. Any better idea than that (since it THEN will break my system, trying to display all these 1,000 "unnecessary" pictures, before displaying any "new" (i.e. sufficiently old) one), anyone?

So this is quite an awful web page format, but quite common on tumblr, and perhaps some web specialist here knows how to handle it best, from the outside?



EDIT

I'm sorry, I should have put a question mark at the end of the title line.

Another example of these special "back-loading" pages - or what's the correct denomination of these, in order to google for an answer? - ist this one:

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/category/themes?hl=en

Here again, every "pgdn" or "end" pressing will load more pictures, again and again. Are there elements in the source code that could be of interest, to check, or even to manipulate, in order to get to the "depths" of such a page, more quickly than by incessant, endless scrolling down?

[Curt]

EDIT
I'm sorry, I should have put a question mark at the end of the title line.

-when you re-edit the post, you can alter the original title as well,
and put in the missing question mark.

---------

Do you know anything about the photos you want, so that you might be able to produce good search terms for Google Pictures (as exact descriptions as possible... especially the photographer's name)? This way you can skip hours of scrolling,

or even add a relevant link to your post.

[evamaria]

Thank you very much, Curt, I hadn't been aware of that. There is a difference between the thread title and the individual titles of the respective posts, and I assumed the thread title could not be changed but by a moderator. This is good news for my AHK intro, too, since I had to become aware that google is NOT able to make the "link" between "ahk" and "autohotkey", so my intro is virtually lost in google, when in fact it was meant to product "traffic" to DC! (and to be read by a maximum number of people who otherwise would buy some (mostly inferior) macro tool, so a better thread title would come handy...
So thank you very much, very helpful hint!

As for identifying known photos there, well:

- when I have scrolled down to photo #1,000 (as an example), I KNOW the - special - url of that photo, meaning the url it has when, in the scrolling page, I click on that photo

- but it seems that knowing that special url is useless here, since, in order to browse photos (example, again) #1,001 to #1,500 here, in the scrolling page, I would need to identify that special photo #1,000 not as a "singularity", but WITHIN the scrolling page:

- in order to "open" that SCROLLING page "at photo #1,000" (or whatever its numer, whatever its name / identification means there)

So the technical question here is:

How to identify a given photo (or other element) WITHIN the scrolling page, and which currently is NOT YET shown there, within the scrolling page:

Let's assume the scrolling page currently just shows photos 1 to 50, but I need photo #500 - and yes, I would know "something about it", from my previous scrolling down to it, from my previous "scrolling session":

How then to make such a page scroll down to that "element #500", or more precisely, two steps:

- First, how to KNOW which way "photo 500" IS identified, within the "scrolling page"? (Since just clicking on it will open its url in a NEW "window")

- Then, next time, how to make the scrolling page scroll down to that photo, identified in the previous session?

From looking at the source code of such "scrolling pages", it seems evident that the special url of "photo 500" is NOT yet listed somewhere in the code of them, when current state of affairs is that they just show photos "1-300"



So, there must be some "trick" to have them shown, and I fear in order to know this trick, "you" need to have better knowledge of HOW such "scrolling pages" WORK, to begin with?

From google, I did not get any help accessible to me, in German, it would be "nachladende Webseite", and if I translate this to English, I get numerous web sites dealing with fire arms, so, first, I'd need the specific English TERM for such scrolling pages...


Alternative: You don't close down Windows in the evening but run your comp for a week or so, and each new day, you try to browse some more 500 photos there. Prob here, Windows will "choke" after some days, and I don't have time to do this, every day in a row.

So I hope for a better alternative.

Btw, people who opt for such pages, in tumblr or elsewhere, do not seem to have seen this problem that all their "previous" photos are literally LOST this way, for people "new" to their respective blog.

I'm aware this is a difficult question, but there are many blogs in this weird format, so an answer how really "to do it" would be tremendously helpful.

[Tinman57]

  Using my browser (Avant Browser) I just click on the "Disable Pictures" icon.  The picture placeholder will show the name of the pictures.  If I think one is the pic I want, I RMC on it and select "Show Picture" and it loads up just that picture for me to view.

[evamaria]

Tinman57, thank you very much for this hint. As always, my posts were rather lengthy, so I will certainly not criticise you for not having read them in their entirety, but instead, let me repeat the real problem here:

I don't need the addresses of individual pics, as individual files / tabs, but I would like to identify some pic, in order to get, WITHIN THE "CATALOG" home page, as fast as possible, back to that pic, in order to continue my "browsing" which I had left another day.

At this time, I suppose it's quite impossible to have ONLY those pics, in the "catalogue home page", that REMAIN to be viewed?

Let's assume I reload the same "catalogue home page", with the option "don't show pics", perhaps my "endless", necessary pressing of the "end" or "pgdn" key(s) would proceed faster - I've had this idea myself, but without trying it.

But then, in order to do my further browsing, from "pic number 1,500" (or whatever) on, I would have to reset the option to "show pics again", and here, I suppose, the browser would first load all those 1499 pics (in our example) "that come before", and THEN only would I be able to brose from pic 1,500 on?!

My own research brought the correct search term, and numerous hits for SCRIPTING (but not for handling, as a user) such a page:

It'd be "ajax dynamic scrolling pages"

Currently, I'm musing if the page

http://ajaxian.com/archives/quick-tip-scroll-to-bottom-of-a-div

or some elements mentioned there could be of any help to find a better approach to my problem detailed here, my underlying prob being that I know NOTHING of Ajax and all this...

And this being a "consumer", not a "developer" prob, I could scarcely justify my delving into these probs for a week or so, all the less so since I'm not sure at all I'll ever find a solution by my own means (provided there IS any solution, to begin with, and which has not been established yet...).

Hence my question again, is there a web developer in this forum who'd be willing to share some of his expert knowledge with us?

[Curt]

One little trick, but not the answer to your question: always open "secondary pictures" in a new tab. This way you don't leave the old tab which is where you scroll and click, and the new tab is to be closed in a second when you have seen the picture.

[Tinman57]

One little trick, but not the answer to your question: always open "secondary pictures" in a new tab. This way you don't leave the old tab which is where you scroll and click, and the new tab is to be closed in a second when you have seen the picture.

Lol, exactly what I was going to say.  I do this a lot with websites loaded with hundreds of pictures.  I have my browser set up to open anything I click with the MMB to a new tab, so it's pretty easy for me....

[evamaria]

This goes without saying, since without doing this, you'd have even many probs for your very first pics in such a special page. The question remains, how to quickly get to pic number 1,000 or whatever, when you will have closed your session and open a new one.

[TaoPhoenix]

It's looking like you can just type /page/x after the address! I tested it on two random separate tumblr blogs on two copies of FF and then IE to try to help rule out browser specific silliness.

Try it and holler how it goes!