Snowfall 1.3.0 [Updated: 11th Dec, 2017]

[m2marsh]

Peter and aRMY83 , that worked perfectly! It is SNOWING in my forums today! THANK YOU!

[m2marsh]

Peter , I'm encountering a sluggish forum when I attempt to make a blizzard. For Christmas, I had planned to make it really storm, so I used these settings



But the scrolling and just reaction to any new screen is really sluggish. In fact, this morning it was so bad it froze up my whole desktop and I had to restart*. Do you know if there is a "too much" range for speed and number of snowflakes?

If you want to see it happen, I can give you the link to my test forum.  It is by approval only, but I'd approve you!  Let me know and I'll PM you the link.

Thanks!

* what crashed it was me clicking the turn it off button in the PB toolbar. That froze not only that forum, but my entire computer!

[m2marsh]

In case it is significant, these are the plugins I have running:

[Peter]

4,000 particles is likely too much. Javascript handles the animating of them. Even though it uses requestAnimationFrame, it's still probably too much on the browser as it's manipulating DOM elements.

A better solution might be to switch to CSS keyframed animations.

[m2marsh]

Dec 17, 2017 17:38:01 GMT -8 Peter said:

4,000 particles is likely too much. Javascript handles the animating of them. Even though it uses requestAnimationFrame, it's still probably too much on the browser as it's manipulating DOM elements.

A better solution might be to switch to CSS keyframed animations.

LOL... Remember I am a novice. No idea what you're talking about.

Any idea how low I should drop the number and it still works? If not, I will play with it and then let you know what I found to be an acceptable lag. Thanks!

[m2marsh]

OK, just a note to other users. If you want to make it blizzard but don't want it to affect forum performance, these are the settings that are working for us:

[m2marsh]

Well, acutally, further testing shows 2000 snowflakes drops performance by 20 percent. So now I'm at 1,000 and things seem to be acceptable.

[Peter]

m2marsh,

Just remember, what might seem fine for you might not be fine for your members depending on the specs of their computer.

[m2marsh]

Yes, right. I did have it tested on a fairly wimpy computer as well, and am told that it was still okay. But I don't know what fairly wimpy actually was.
I know I don't have a very fancy computer, and it's fine for mine. We'll see. The second I start getting complaints I will turn it off. Thanks for your advice.

[gtrmacs]

Thank-you for this, easy to install and works perfectly

Using it on gsduk.boards.net/

[sef1268]

Hi,
I have a quick question on this very nice plug-in. When I use it on other pages, the snow "stops" halfway down the page when there are lengthier posts. Any way around this? For now, I have opted just to use it on the home page.

piganon.proboards.com

Thanks in advance!