I am still interested in the concept. Do you use splash screens?

They were very vogue a couple of years ago, but now more people seem to lump them in with flash intro's. A waste of time and bandwidth.

So to the question. Do you use a splash screen? Or should you be able to get straight into the action?

I used to, but it was slightly pointless. People don't want to come to my site and then have to click ENTER HERE. They want to come to my site to read my sites content.

Actually, by using the term "Splash screen", I was just reminded of software splash screens which sort of hide the fact the application is still loading, and it gave me an idea. Back in 2002 when dHTML was the next big thing and W3C was still "uncool" (nowadays everybody loves W3C and their XHTML and CSS2), some advanced sites used loading screens, which loaded all the graphics in the background with a progress bar and then *poof* displayed the whole site loaded as it should be at once. Combining this with the concept of a splash screen isn't such a bad idea at all. You could have a 50% transparent black layer over the page while it loads, and display a small loading screen with a little welcome text over it which you can close by clicking anywhere on it. You can see the page load in the darkness in the background, and if for some reason you get impatient you can still view the page while it's loading, by hiding the splash/loading screen. Might be something funky to implement sometime :).

That is a great idea. :)

I think it will be interesting to see how some "Flash" ideas (such as preloaders etc) get integrated into "static"* pages as we slowly move over to Web 2.0

*When I say static obviously AJAX etc. means that a page isn't static, but I am sure you get my drift. ;)

Splash screens can be helpul for people who are more visual. Personally I like intros (if they aren't too long) It sorta sets the stage for what you have on the site. Also if you have your site on one of those surf to get paid sites, you can grab a user's attention by providing sounds and animation verse the plain old pages.

Actually, by using the term "Splash screen", I was just reminded of software splash screens which sort of hide the fact the application is still loading, and it gave me an idea. Back in 2002 when dHTML was the next big thing and W3C was still "uncool" (nowadays everybody loves W3C and their XHTML and CSS2), some advanced sites used loading screens, which loaded all the graphics in the background with a progress bar and then *poof* displayed the whole site loaded as it should be at once. Combining this with the concept of a splash screen isn't such a bad idea at all. You could have a 50% transparent black layer over the page while it loads, and display a small loading screen with a little welcome text over it which you can close by clicking anywhere on it. You can see the page load in the darkness in the background, and if for some reason you get impatient you can still view the page while it's loading, by hiding the splash/loading screen. Might be something funky to implement sometime :).
a few years ago i had a splash screen that had this same effect, it loaded the frontpage in the background then automatically switched to it. or you could just skip it and have a chunk of images or something missing. worked really well :D

a few years ago i had a splash screen that had this same effect, it loaded the frontpage in the background then automatically switched to it. or you could just skip it and have a chunk of images or something missing. worked really well :D
Do you still have the source? /me wants to see :)

this was like 4 years ago..... don't even think i have the same HDD :P

I use one on my band's website. I dunno, I just invisioned the giant logo before you get to the meat of the site. It's like a coverpage to a portfolio, or the cover of a cd.

I had a splash screen, but then I decided to get rid of it.

Depends on the site. For the most part, I think splash screens suck. And I think DHTML loading bars suck too :p

But on some sites they're okay. Artsy sites mostly (including music bands).