Posted by Andy Dingley on 01/25/07 10:26

On 24 Jan, 16:41, William Hughes <cvp...@grandecom.net> wrote:
> What is the consensus about an acceptable maximum limit on HTML file
> sizes or number of screens per page?

File size is just the wrong measurement.

For a graphic page, the image size dwarfs the HTML file size.
For a pure-text page then it's scrolling dimension that matters, not
the implementation detail of file size. All current platforms today
(even phones) are limited by scrolling rather than by bandwidth.

Scrolling through a chapter of a novel is the "best case" here. It's
permissible for that to be a long scroll because it has a linear access
model and suffers least. Even then, there's a bookmarking problem.

Any other page is definitely too long if it has too much scrolling.
It's hard to quote a simple limit in windowfuls, look instead at how
it's used. If the navigation is often jumping between sections, then
break it down. If there _are_ sections that are easily recognised and
separated, then break it down. If you'd usually want to print one
section, not all, then break it down.

It sounds as if this is an underlying CMS problem. If you edit by hand
then it's an incentive to make simple long pages. If you have a decent
CMS though, outputting in separate sections with the automatic and
accurate addition of navigation is no big deal.

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