Issue 30: coolRunnings: support POST
Project Member Reported by stevesou...@gmail.com, Sep 5, 2009
If the number of image URLs exceeds the 4K querystring limit, not all
images are sprited. use POST?
Sep 5, 2009
Project Member #1 jaredhir...@yahoo.com
Should be pretty straightforward. Added to my list: 

http://bitbucket.org/jared/coolrunnings/issue/9/support-post-for-longer-input-strings
Sep 15, 2009
Project Member #2 jaredhir...@yahoo.com
here's a thought: most sites will probably have one, or at most a few, base URLs for
images. What if we continue to use GET, but just include an option to abbreviate the
base URL in the GET call?

The ebay spriteme call, for example, gets considerably smaller:

Before:

  "images":[
 {"url":"http://pics.ebaystatic.com/aw/pics/globalHeader/imgHdrMainNavLft3.gif",
"top":10, "left":10},
{"url":"http://pics.ebaystatic.com/aw/pics/globalHeader/imgHdrMainNavRgt3.gif",
"top":75, "left":10},
{"url":"http://pics.ebaystatic.com/aw/pics/cmp/btn/btnFilmstripBgHoriz.gif",
"top":140, "left":10},
{"url":"http://pics.ebaystatic.com/aw/pics/buy/dailydeal/btnDDShowMe.gif",
"top":2560, "left":10},
{"url":"http://pics.ebaystatic.com/aw/pics/cmp/btn/sprbtnprimary.png", "top":2615,
"left":10},
{"url":"http://pics.ebaystatic.com/aw/pics/globalAssets/imgHPHdrLftYellow.gif",
"top":2905, "left":10},
{"url":"http://pics.ebaystatic.com/aw/pics/globalAssets/imgPanelLLGreyGrad.gif",
"top":2935, "left":10},
{"url":"http://pics.ebaystatic.com/aw/pics/globalHeader/imgHdrSearchLft.gif",
"top":2965, "left":10},
{"url":"http://pics.ebaystatic.com/aw/pics/globalHeader/imgHdrSearchRgt.gif",
"top":3035, "left":10},
{"url":"http://pics.ebaystatic.com/aw/pics/globalHeader/imgHdrCatsLft2.gif",
"top":3105, "left":10},
{"url":"http://pics.ebaystatic.com/aw/pics/globalHeader/imgHdrCatsRgt2.gif",
"top":3160, "left":10},
{"url":"http://pics.ebaystatic.com/aw/pics/globalHeader/imgHdrMainNavBgHighlight.gif", "top":3215,
"left":10}, {"url":"http://pics.ebaystatic.com/aw/pics/cmp/ui/sprpanelcrns.png",
"top":3280, "left":10},
{"url":"http://pics.ebaystatic.com/aw/pics/globalAssets/imgHPHdrRgtYellow.gif",
"top":3691, "left":10},
{"url":"http://pics.ebaystatic.com/aw/pics/globalAssets/imgPanelLRGreyGrad.gif",
"top":3721, "left":10}]}

after:

  "abbr":[{"url1":"http://pics.ebaystatic.com/aw/pics"}],
"images":[
 {"url":"url1/globalHeader/imgHdrMainNavLft3.gif", "top":10, "left":10},
{"url":"url1/globalHeader/imgHdrMainNavRgt3.gif", "top":75, "left":10},
{"url":"url1/cmp/btn/btnFilmstripBgHoriz.gif", "top":140, "left":10},
{"url":"url1/buy/dailydeal/btnDDShowMe.gif", "top":2560, "left":10},
{"url":"url1/cmp/btn/sprbtnprimary.png", "top":2615, "left":10}, 
{"url":"url1/globalAssets/imgHPHdrLftYellow.gif", "top":2905, "left":10},
{"url":"url1/globalAssets/imgPanelLLGreyGrad.gif", "top":2935, "left":10},
{"url":"url1/globalHeader/imgHdrSearchLft.gif", "top":2965, "left":10},
{"url":"url1/globalHeader/imgHdrSearchRgt.gif", "top":3035, "left":10},
{"url":"url1/globalHeader/imgHdrCatsLft2.gif", "top":3105, "left":10},
{"url":"url1/globalHeader/imgHdrCatsRgt2.gif", "top":3160, "left":10},
{"url":"url1/globalHeader/imgHdrMainNavBgHighlight.gif", "top":3215, "left":10},
{"url":"url1/cmp/ui/sprpanelcrns.png", "top":3280, "left":10}, 
{"url":"url1/globalAssets/imgHPHdrRgtYellow.gif", "top":3691, "left":10},
{"url":"url1/globalAssets/imgPanelLRGreyGrad.gif", "top":3721, "left":10}]}

I'm thinking in particular of the 'use GET for Ajax' YSlow rule. Not really sure if
it's worth it to add the abbreviation logic. Any thoughts?
Sep 16, 2009
Project Member #3 stevesou...@gmail.com
I would vote to just do POST. There's another issue that has come up - some people
didn't realize their image URLs were being sent to a web service and feel it's a loss
of privacy. Putting the URL in POST at least hides those URLS from web server logs. I
don't think the extra packet is a big deal.