tags:

views:

53

answers:

3

I have observed that, very infrequently, Internet Explorer (7 or 8, it does not matter) displays our web pages (www.epsitec.ch) a short time without applying the CSS. The layout appears completely broken, with everything displayed sequentially from top to bottom. When the page has finished loading, everything finally gets displayed properly.

Our web pages do not use any fancy scripting, just two javascript inclusions for QuantCast and Google Analytics, done at the end of the page. By the way, we already had the issue before adding the QuantCast script. The CSS gets linked in the <head> section:

<head>
  <title>Crésus Comptabilité</title>
  <link rel="icon" href="/favicon.ico" type="image/x-icon" />
  <link rel="shortcut icon" href="http://www.epsitec.ch/favicon.ico" />
  <link href="../../style.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" />
  ...
</head>

and then follows static HTML up to the final chunk which includes the JavaScript:

    ...
    <div id="account">
      <a class="deselect" href="/account/login">Identifiez-vous</a>
      <script type="text/javascript">
        _qoptions={qacct:"..."};
      </script>
      <script type="text/javascript" src="http://edge.quantserve.com/quant.js"&gt;
      </script>
      <noscript>
        <img src="..." style="display: none;" border="0" height="1" width="1"/>
      </noscript>
    </div>
    <div id="contact">
      <a href="/support/contact">Contactez-nous</a>
    </div>
    <div id="ending"><!-- --></div>
  </div>
  <script type="text/javascript">
    ...
  </script>
  <script type="text/javascript">
    var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("...");
    pageTracker._initData();
    pageTracker._trackPageview();
  </script>
</body>

As this is a very short visual glitch, I have no idea what provokes it. Worse, I cannot reproduce it and it appears only on seldom occasions. How can I further investigate the cause of the glitch? Are there any best practices I should be aware of?

A: 

I did not have the problem, usually has to do with internet connection. CSS loading slowly.

Dustin Laine
+2  A: 

This is called a FOUC, a Flash Of Unstyled Content, and is well documented and explained here: http://www.bluerobot.com/web/css/fouc.asp/

deceze
Thank you for the reference. We are already using a `<LINK>` element in the header, which should prevent the FOUC. I'll try adding an empty script element too. Crossing my fingers ;-)
Pierre
A: 

FOUC has to do with the order of loading external assets like CSS and JS files. Inline script snippets block downloading of subsequent assets until they are interpreted. This is one of the causes for FOUC.

A best-practice for front-end performance as well as avoiding FOUC is to have your CSS files referenced in the <head> of your document and your JavaScript right before the closing </body> tag.

This makes the browser download styles, render the page, then apply JavaScript.

Razvan Caliman