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I ran a load speed test for all my plugins, and not surprisingly the simple press forum plugin took much longer than anything else, 10 or 20 times as long as other plugins. Now I understand that a big forum is a big thing to load. I am just wondering if there is anything in the settings which I could adjust to reduce load time, or if there are certain features which increase site load time which might not be necessary. From what I understand, simple press does not work with caching plugins. So is there any tinkering that I can do to improve load speed?
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Well - first off let's clarify a couple of things. First off caching plugins. It is a good thing to cache static data such as a blog post. If you try to cache say, a forum topic thread then this is not static as people will be adding to it. This data is dynamic and therefore you always need to be showing the latest mist up to date 'version'. So it is not correct to say that 'simple press does not work with caching plugins'. It works perfectly. You just get shown old, cached data and people are left to wonder where their latest post has gone.
Secondly, comparing load times with different plugins active has absolutely no validity. How on earth can you compare plugin load times when some plugins are very small and do a single, concentrated job and others, like Simple:Press, has a vast amount of work to do?
It is impossible to accurately throw out a few things regarding performance as every site is different. From the power of the hosting server, the complexity of the WordPress theme, other WP plugins that are active and competing for resources - they all play a major part in performance.
Generally speaking a good rule of thumb is to remove everything you do not want or use. I have visited some sites where every Simple:Press plugin has been downloaded and activated for no other reason than it can be done. Yet out of those 55 odd plugins the user was probably only using 2 or 3 and was therefore loading vast amounts of code for no reason whatsoever. Same goes for WP plugins. Remove any that are not used. Keep things lean. Oh - and use the theme CSS and JS cache the forum offers.
Including forum data on non-forum pages does have a cost as you would expect. Creating huge numbers of forums adds a penalty as well. But at the end of the day forum data is complex as is the dislpay of that data. Every items that is displayed is geared towards the user loading the page. Their own personal list of unread posts for example. Checking for which forums they may have access to and what tools they can use. There is always going to be a price for that level of functionality.
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Thanks for this explanation. Now I understand why simple press should not be cached. From what you are telling me, it should probably be specifically excluded from caching. I am using WP Super Cache. There is a section under the "Advanced" tab where I can exclude a certain string from caching. Since I am not sure what is meant by "string" exactly, is it correct to put the forum in the exclusion box with this syntax: /forum/ - is this correct?
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I believe putting the slug in just like that should do the trick.
There is an easy way to tell. If you load a page and then look at the source being generated (Usually from a 'view source' menu item on your browser) and when it displays scroll to the very bottom then you will find an entry made my the cache plugin. This will tell you if it was served from the cache itself which - for forum pages - you do not want.
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Hmm, I looked at the source code, and I don't see anything from the caching plugin at the bottom of the page. Maybe I am not looking in the right place. There is so much code on that page, it boggles my mind how the google spiders can even decipher it all.
Would you mind taking a quick look if you see an entry from WP supercache. Here is a sample forum page:
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Certainly looks good to me.
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I am not sure that I understood your answer. When you say it looks good to you, do you mean that the absence of a notice from WP SuperCache at the bottom of the code means that the forum is not being cached, in other words it is done right?
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Correct. If you look at your home page source you will see at the bottom the cache info. You do not see that on the forum page which means it is excluded.
So in that respect everything looks fine. Are you still having an issue after these changes?
Custom Simple Press Themes
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Thanks, that helped. Just one more question. I can log in and post in the forum as a gold member. However when I try to download a plugin, I see a message that my membership has expired. The membership is supposed to give me access to the forum and the plugins. I have access to one but not the other, and I cannot find any place where it tells me how long my membership is good for. Can you point me in the right direction regarding this please.
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I am very sorry to hear that. We still have the odd gremlin strike on renewed memberships ad this must have happened here. I believe I have sorted this out so can you please try again and let me know if the problem persists. Again apologies and thanks for your patience...
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