There are a few options that I see, to mitigate this.
Enhance and persist retina.js' HTTP call results caching
For any given '2x' image that is set to swap out a '1x' version, retina.js first verifies the availability of the image via an XMLHttpRequest request. Paths with successful responses are cached in an array and the image is downloaded.
The following changes may improve efficiency:
Failed XMLHttpRequest verification attempts can be cached: Presently, a '2x' path verification attempt is skipped only if it has previously succeeded. Therefore, failed attempts can recur. In practice, this doesn't matter much beacuse the verification process happens when the page is initially loaded. But, if the results are persisted, keeping track of failures will prevent recurring 404 errors.
Persist '2x' path verification results in localStorage: During initialization, retina.js can check localStorage for a results cache. If one is found, the verification process for '2x' images that have already been encountered can be bypassed and the '2x' image can either be downloaded or skipped. Newly encounterd '2x' image paths can be verified and the results added to the cache. Theoretically, while localStorage is available, a 404 will occur only once for an image on a per-browser basis. This would apply across pages for any page on the domain.
Here is a quick workup. Expiration functionality would probably need to be added.
https://gist.github.com/4343101/revisions
Employ an HTTP redirect header
I must note that my grasp of "server-side" matters is spotty, at best. Please take this FWIW
Another option is for the server to respond with a redirect code for image requests that have the @2x characters and do not exist. See this related answer.
In particular:
If you redirect images and they're cacheable, you'd ideally set an HTTP Expires header (and the appropriate Cache-Control header) for a date in the distant future, so at least on subsequent visits to the page users won't have to go through the redirect again.
Employing the redirect response would get rid of the 404s and cause the browser to skip subsequent attempts to access '2x' image paths that do not exist.
retina.js can be made more selective
retinajs can be modified to exclude some images from consideration.
A pull request related to this: https://github.com/imulus/retinajs/commit/e7930be
Per the pull request, instead of finding <img> elements by tag name, a CSS selector can be used and this can be one of the retina.js' configurable options. A CSS selector can be created that will filter out user uploaded images (and other images for which a '2x' variant is expected not to exist).
Another possibility is to add a filter function to the configurable options. The function can be called on each matched <img> element; a return true would cause a '2x' variant to be downloaded and anything else would cause the <img> to be skipped.
The basic, default configuration would change from the current version to something like:
var config = {
check_mime_type: true,
retinaImgTagSelector: 'img',
retinaImgFilterFunc: undefined
};
The Retina.init() function would change from the current version to something like:
Retina.init = function(context) {
if (context == null) context = root;
var existing_onload = context.onload || new Function;
context.onload = function() {
// uses new query selector
var images = document.querySelectorAll(config.retinaImgTagSelector),
retinaImages = [], i, image, filter;
// if there is a filter, check each image
if (typeof config.retinaImgFilterFunc === 'function') {
filter = config.retinaImgFilterFunc;
for (i = 0; i < images.length; i++) {
image = images[i];
if (filter(image)) {
retinaImages.push(new RetinaImage(image));
}
}
} else {
for (i = 0; i < images.length; i++) {
image = images[i];
retinaImages.push(new RetinaImage(image));
}
}
existing_onload();
}
};
To put it into practice, before window.onload fires, call:
window.Retina.configure({
// use a class 'no-retina' to prevent retinajs
// from checking for a retina version
retinaImgTagSelector : 'img:not(.no-retina)',
// or, assuming there is a data-owner attribute
// which indicates the user that uploaded the image:
// retinaImgTagSelector : 'img:not([data-owner])',
// or set a filter function that will exclude images that have
// the current user's id in their path, (assuming there is a
// variable userId in the global scope)
retinaImgFilterFunc: function(img) {
return img.src.indexOf(window.userId) < 0;
}
});
Update: Cleaned up and reorganized. Added the localStorage enhancement.
