What loads when you call up the index page?

[chgo29]

I'm a rookie web site developer. Didn't know anything about it, but I volunteered to develop one for our church. Bought an "idiot" book on html and after a lot of agony, and trial and error, came up with a web site (danaumc.org). But, I have a question bugging me. I'm collecting a lot of mp3 audio files and jpeg photo galleries on this web site, and I'm concerned that as I add more and more of these large files, the loading time for the web site will become slower and slower. I am thinking I should create an archive for both the audio files and the photo galleries - but, here's the question. When you dial up a web site, does just the index page load? Or, does everything contained in the web site - like archives - load? I'm thinking maybe just the index page loads, and the archives don't load unless you call them up. If that's the case, collecting these large files in an archive wouldn't put a loading burden on the web site"home page". But, if the entire contents of the web site loads when you dial up the index page, then I've got to rethink my approach. I sure would appreciate an answer. I've googled this question but can't come up with an answer. Thanks. Cliff

[Lespaul20]

When you visit a site you only load what is on that specific page not any other other linked pages. Think about if you were to visit any other site such as pcmech, you don't load every blog that is on the site, just whats on that page. How are you archiving the media by they way?

[mairving]

You won't have a problem with the stuff loading from other pages.

You might consider some things that will make your life easier.
A CMS (Content Management System) - I usually use Joomla or Wordpress. This way you don't have to make but one page or template for the site to hold all of the content and you have a backend admin area to add content.
A podcasting feature for your sermons. I have used loudblog before and it did a great job. You can setup a podcast quite easily.

Some useful links:
Joomla (http://www.joomla.org/)
Wordpress (http://wordpress.org/)
Loudblog (http://www.loudblog.com/)
Christian Webmasters Forums (http://www.christian-web-masters.com/forums/) is a good source for sites for churches that might be helpful to you.

[chgo29]

Thanks Lespaul and Mairving for your responses. It was a relief to finally get an answer to that question. Lespaul - I don't know how I'm going to do the archiving - I haven't started that yet. I guess I'll just create another navigation link to "Sermon Archives" and one to "Photo Gallery Archives" - and have all that stuff there. Mairving - thanks for all those links. I haven't explored them yet but they sound very interesting. It sure is great to have guys like you who are willing to help a newbie. Thanks - Cliff

[blue60007]

Might as well keep the pictures and mp3's as pictures and mp3's. Sure you could zip them up, but that would make it more difficult for your viewers to get to them. Wouldn't really save on file space either...mp3's and jpeg's are already compressed.