Quake3World

since you lot travle the web so much Id like to hear opinions

I need some ideas here.

Basically what my problem is this:

I have a part on my site where movies related to images can be viewed/ downloaded by the users.

it looks like this:

[lvlshot]http://www.cinemasiafreaks.com/binaries/1.png[/lvlshot]

the user clicks an image and a new window (popup) opens. Currently I have set the size to 600x600, which is already large. The problem is, I also display the previous image and the next image in this window. Currently I have set the image resize function for the middle picture to create a picture of 500 pixels wide, and 200 pixels wide for the smaller thumbnails.

Clicking the image will allow the user to download the image (if logged in)
the arrows forward the user to the next image, centering the one to the most right part of the screen.

this is how that looks (full size window):

[lvlshot]http://www.cinemasiafreaks.com/binaries/2.png[/lvlshot]

in order to have this work on everybodies machines, I am thinking about adding a part to the user's control panel for my site where they can set their resolution and the widths for the images they would like the site to display them in. These values are then stored in session variables, then passed to the function instead of the hardcoded widths I am using now.
I could use javascript, but this is highly unreliable...

The problem is, what size should they default to?
For not logged in members/ visitors and spiders visiting the site, I have to have a set of hardcoded values which will work.
Also I am a bit worried about server strain, as they thumbnails are always stored in the same location, they have to be re-created for every user viewing them.

anyway, curious about ideas/ pointers

I'd say you should be able to set the preview size in, for example, a drop down list above the image (automatically saving that setting for logged in members, and perhaps setting it in a cookie for visitors?).

It will mess a bit with the minimalistic design of the site, but it would improve usability.

The default setting should fit all three images in a window no larger than 800x600, but as large as possible within that window IMO.

If viewing images is what you're there for, you should expect some loading time if you're on a slow connection.

And if you expect any kind of traffic, you should look into doing some caching of the images.