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Over the past four years our principal
aim has been to represent each sale in as complete and fair
a manner as time and information allows. With each additional
sale the site evolved to what it is today, mostly archive, a
storehouse of thousands of pictures of everyday, antique and
unusual items.
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Visitors will find a number of viewing possibilities when
browsing this website. These range from simple point
and click thumbnails and film strips to slide show presentations,
tool-tip popups and intermodal dialog windows (‘lightbox’).
Some of these features require additional scripting support.
However, none of the content is inaccessible if scripting
is turned off. As we are a
How to Use the Lightbox Controls
The majority of main sale pages utilize text phrases in place of thumbnails to access associated pictures. We made this change to speed up page load times, and to shorten the page as much as possible to reduce scrolling. If scripting is enabled, clicking these links will open the lightbox window. Hovering (position the pointer) on the photo will activate “Previous” & “Next” arrows, as apply to the sequence. Usually the series will include all of the photos in the group as listed.
A scaling tool is available in the top left of the lightbox screen. Click this tool, and roll the mouse wheel to scale the picture up and down (zoom in and out). Click and hold the left mouse button to drag the image, or use the scroll bars. To resume normal size, click the scaling tool again. This is a necessary step in order to escape the lightbox.
Click anywhere in the lightbox to close and resume viewing the page. Do not use the Back Button, as this will navigate back to the previously visited page (or website).
Test Drive the Lightbox
Click the link above or the thumbnail at left to experience the intermodal dialog window.
Other pages also use the lightbox. These include any page with a link to the Wainwright Street Map, the Filmstrip pages, and most Catalog pages. Only photos open in the lightbox, and then, only if they are contained in a link, making the picture accessible with or without scripting.
In absence of the lightbox, pictures will open in the active window, as stand-alone items without webpage support. Use the Back Button to return to the previous page.
Other Notes on Viewing the Site
Catalog pages offer two ways to view photos, either by hovering on the photo link (a numbered button in the left column indicates a photo available) or by clicking it. Hovering will reveal the photo and caption in a popup tool-tip. Moving the mouse away from the button removes the popup. Clicking the button will open the lightbox. The entire sequence of photos in the page are navigable from the lightbox.
Slide shows were introduced in 2007, and they are simply that: timed display of all the photos in a sequence, along with caption text. These are continuously looped, and execute until the page is exited. Note: If the user has multiple windows open, it may be possible to leave one or more of these slideshows running, which may effect computer performance due to repeated load on the CPU.
The simplest way (though not available sitewide) to view photos is with the Filmstip, introduced in late 2007. This is a numbered list of photos in a plain, scrollable page. The numbers have no relationship to the photo, other than position in the sequence. These are not lot numbers. Clicking any photo in this page will open the lightbox with scaling and navigation to the entire sequence.
Connection and Download Speed
In the past we had to contend with dial-up connection speeds, and still do, only to a lesser extent. We were wont to create images that would download quickly, and to that end published pictures that were perhaps ‘over-optimized’ or smaller than needs be. The policy that has evolved takes into account both dial-up and high-speed users by offering a compromise in the form of better quality photos in a relatively consistent size.
Photos will generally be in the 20 to 24 KB range, and seldom greater, regardless of the image size. The smaller the picture, the better the quality (within reason). Most photos are 400 pixels wide by 300 pixels high, with some variation in width and height. To facilitate slide shows, the height is kept at or below 300 pixels. Width rarely exceeds 450 pixels.
Slides rotate at a rate of one every 3 seconds, which is about the time it should take to download the next photo in the series at dial-up speeds. Each user’s experience will vary slightly. We appreciate that some will encounter longer delays than others, and count on their patience.
Because all the photos have to download to make the Filmstrips usable, visitors should expect some delay, regardless of connection speed. The advantage of the Filmstrip is that all photos are cached on the user’s machine, which elliminates any delay in subsequent viewing of the associated slide show or lightbox sequence.
