Implement lazy loading for images

Hi,

I’ve been recently thinking about ways to improve platform performance, and a recent thread reminded me about this idea which I forgot to post previously. 

For my own websites that I run, I make heavy use of the server level caching and optimization features to massively improve performance across the entire stack, one of which is lazy loading images and media. It helps to improve page loads by only initially loading in resources that are actually visible when the user first lands on the page, and then load in other resources when they’re about to become visible on a Just-in-Time basis. This helps to ensure I’m not dumping 50mb worth of media gallery all at once onto a user who only wants to view two or three images. It also reduces the pressure on both sides and breaks things down into much smaller chunks.

I feel it’s something that inSided might benefit from, especially for media heavy threads, or for ones where there’s almost no images in the opening post, but loads of images five replies deep. These currently bog down page loads even if the user isn’t going to see everything. If it was lazy loaded, the page could be snappy and lightning fast, without losing anything else.

Ideally, it would be great for responsive placeholders and transition effects to be applied as well, so that the layout of the page doesn’t suddenly jump all over the place when an image loads in and renders. It could also look really nice too, if you do it right!