Fallback image and timeout - External Content. Javascript

Question

What is the best way to set up a local fallback image if the external image does not load or takes too long to load.

Proclamation

Brilliant! I was just about to ask the same question, and I did a quick google search and found this question. I was thinking of doing it server side, but client side sounds much more straightforward. – Astrix

Answer 1

You can add an onerror handler:

<img
  src="http://example.com/somejpg.jpg"
  onerror='this.onerror = null; this.src="./oops.gif"'
/>

Note: Setting onerror to null in the handler, so that the webpage doesn't crash if oops.gif can't be loaded for some reason.

Fuchs

Oh, I forgot about onerror. This might be easier, but the solution I posted below allows to precache the images and check their availability before they have to be displayed. Depends on what you need... – Seiler

Awesome! Love it when I learn new tricks like this. I was going to resort to some jQuery jiggery pokery. – Wattage

The problem here is the time by which the image regarded as not available ! It may take long time the browser activity loading works till it invoke the onerror event. – Keane

Thank you so much. it's very fantastic – Cawley

Answer 2

Try to make use of the Image.complete property.

var img = new Image(w,h)
img.src = "http://...";

Now check periodically if img.complete is true and call some fallback mechanism shuold it still be false after n seconds.

Seiler