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Browser Load Time Stopwatch
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Webmonkey needed a good way to time how fast a web page loads or to compare the load times of different browsers. You see, we have big thumbs and we keep messing up when we try our old-timey stopwatch.
So we whipped up this code to start a timer when the browser starts and stops loading a web page.
This page is a wiki. If you have any ideas to enhance the program or have anything to add, log in and edit this page.
Contents |
Introduction
Our web-based stopwatch is not the most scientific way to test browsers, but it will do in a pinch and for lack of a better option.
What you'll need
You'll need to simply copy and paste this code into a text editor and save the file as something like "loadtest.html"
Load it up in the browser of your choice and a JavaScript message will tell you how long it takes to load the page.
Code and Explanation
<html>
<script language="javascript">
var startTime = new Date();
// The following function uses the time and calculates it against when the
// script first loaded, basically getting the start and end time. This function
// is run when the page finishes loading using the "onload=" DHTML element of
// the iframe
function showElapsedTime(){
var testSiteUrl = document.getElementById("testFrame").src;
var testSiteString = String(testSiteUrl).slice(testSiteUrl.indexOf("www"));
var endTime = new Date();
var elapsedTime = Number(endTime-startTime);
var browser=navigator.userAgent;
var platform=navigator.platform;
// This is the message that pops up informing you the elapsed time
var msgString = "http://" + testSiteString + "<br />took " + elapsedTime + " milliseconds or " + Number(elapsedTime/1000) + " seconds to load.<br /><br />Your browser and platform is: <br />" + browser;
document.getElementById("results").innerHTML = msgString;
}
</script>
<h1>Webmonkey Stopwatch</h1>
<div style="margin:40px 0px; border: 1px solid black; padding: 5px;" id="results"><small>Test is running...</small></div>
<!-- This loads the web page in an iFrame and runs the showElapsedTime function when the page is loaded. -->
<iframe id="testFrame" onload="showElapsedTime();" src="http://www.facebook.com/" width="640" height="800" scrolling="no" frameborder="2" ></iframe>
</html>
Suggested readings
We encourage you to add test results to enter your results in our our survey page.
Known Issues:
- The page will load only time the first page it comes across. That means that if there is a redirect, it will only time how long it took to load the redirect, not the actual page.
- There is no accounting for connection speed. To level the playing field, you might want to save the web page to your hard drive first, and run it from there.
- This page was last modified 23:33, 18 June 2008.
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