What's your "must have" plugin?

candyman · 2017-09-05 19:44:01

Yep, just one of the many peculiarities that makes this community really nice.
But you’ll discover it by yourself.

etc · 2017-09-05 20:36:30

Vienuolis wrote #306854:

Only one simple yet productive txp:image attribute (and the corresponding field in images panel) linked (url) would satisfy me.

I guess, you would also like to view these “external” images on admin Image tab, right? Not sure there is no risk of malicious code injection, especially with svg format, since you have no control on external resources. Otherwise this would be a nice feature indeed.

bici · 2017-09-06 00:04:41

sorry. my reply should have been to this post
https://forum.textpattern.com/viewtopic.php?pid=291639#p291639

colak · 2017-09-06 06:46:38

Bloke wrote #306852:

Not wishing to derail this discussion, but what makes you say that? Serving many files at once off traditional spinning disk (e.g. Pages, Forms, Stylesheets, Images, etc.) burdens the disk controller and read/write heads.

With a separate database server and file server (to alleviate disk head contention on database temp/cache areas), delivering heavy page content from the database and allowing the disk to supply the stuff that’s only stored on disk is arguably more efficient: parallel processing and all that. On top of that, the database can return multiple resources in their entirety in a single query; a disk can’t unless the resources happen to wholly reside in the same sector or block.

Granted, on SSD the distinction is largely moot. It may then be better to serve everything off “disk”, but I haven’t done any performance benchmarks to assess which system is better. Not arguing against the idea, just curious if I’m missing anything.

I would think that static files are cached easier in the browser. We also have fewer db queries. Re images… It is a big subject for a lot of us which I am not touching as it was discussed widely in some threads here. For me there are no plugins which deal with images in a static way – and I can not think of any backward compatible method to do so.

@ Iki

smd is the prefix used by Stef (Bloke) for his plugins.

@ Bloke: +1 for com_connect

Bloke · 2017-09-06 10:12:29

colak wrote #306868:

I would think that static files are cached easier in the browser.

True: queries are also cached by the DB. Swings, roundabouts… my view is we should offer both and you can choose. Theme support in 4.7.0 is about to land, which helps.

Iki wrote #306861:

So the initials in front of the plugins are the authors mark?

Yes, sorry. Forgot to mention that bit. It’s a legacy thing due to Textpattern internals, but does serve as a nice ‘branding’ benefit that you know who in the community wrote the plugin. For reference, there’s a complete list of prefixes on the docs site.

etc · 2017-09-06 11:10:37

Bloke wrote #306873:

True: queries are also cached by the DB. Swings, roundabouts… my view is we should offer both and you can choose. Theme support in 4.7.0 is about to land, which helps.

Browser caching is mainly question of headers sent by the server. We could instruct the browser to cache css.php?n=default for one month, it would then not even try to reconnect to css.php (yielding no processing at all), unless the client expressly reloads a page. But this would be a problem when css gets updated. You’ve got the same problem for file-stored css, but Apache has some smart predicting algorithm for cache expiration. So storing css as files is a valid request IMO. But this is not true for pages, forms and other stuff that must be processed by txp anyway. Only IMO again :-)

philwareham · 2017-09-06 12:26:02

As far as I’m concerned, since CSS is not dynamic (doesn’t have Textpattern tags in it) there is no reason to store it in a Textpattern database table. Browsers cache CSS flat files just fine by default, and you should be minifying them anyway so they’d be fairly human-unreadable in the CSS panel. I say ‘them’, you should only have a single CSS file per site in most situations.

If you want to introduce a way to spoof CSS within the database to be seen and handled like a flat file by browsers (and auto minified and auto concatenated) I have no problem with that at all. I won’t need it but I can see benefit of it to others.

Same goes for JavaScript, mostly.

colak · 2017-09-06 13:49:46

philwareham wrote #306875:

As far as I’m concerned, since CSS is not dynamic (doesn’t have Textpattern tags in it) there is no reason to store it in a Textpattern database table. Browsers cache CSS flat files just fine by default, and you should be minifying them anyway so they’d be fairly human-unreadable in the CSS panel. I say ‘them’, you should only have a single CSS file per site in most situations.

If you want to introduce a way to spoof CSS within the database to be seen and handled like a flat file by browsers (and auto minified and auto concatenated) I have no problem with that at all. I won’t need it but I can see benefit of it to others.

Same goes for JavaScript, mostly.

This would be my ideal situation and although I will describe it for the css, it would be great if we had it for js as well:

css remains in the database as is but it is also saved as a file in a css folder.

The tag could have a minify option which would just work on the saved file but not the database. This makes it easier to edit the css .

<txp:css format="link" name="plain" rel="alternate"  minify="1" title="Plain and simple style" />
<txp:css format="link" name="glossy" rel="alternate" minify="1" title="Glossy style" />
<txp:css format="link" name="print" minify="1" media="print" />

Vienuolis · 2017-09-06 14:33:03

etc wrote #306863:

I guess, you would also like to view these “external” images on admin Image tab, right?

No, plain URL only. Maybe a file (or image, article) ID instead, if internal. Or sometimes even a code snippet also, if secured.

GugUser · 2017-09-06 16:21:43

colak wrote #306877:

This would be my ideal situation and although I will describe it for the css, it would be great if we had it for js as well:

You have the total freedom to do it this way in a page or a form (the same works for a js-file):

<link rel="stylesheet" href="/css/name.css" />

Or if you prefer it that way:

<link rel="stylesheet" href="<txp:site_url />css/name.css" />

colak · 2017-09-06 18:39:31

GugUser wrote #306881:

You have the total freedom to do it this way in a page or a form (the same works for a js-file):

<link rel="stylesheet" href="/css/name.css" />...

Or if you prefer it that way:

<link rel="stylesheet" href="<txp:site_url />css/name.css" />...

Hi GugUser,

Not quite. I was suggesting we implemented the rvm_css and spf_js plugins into the core but have an additional minify function for the static file saved.

GugUser · 2017-09-06 18:45:22

colak wrote #306884:

Hi GugUser,

Not quite. I was suggesting we implemented the rvm_css and spf_js plugins into the core but have an additional minify function for the static file saved.

Oh, so the “minify function” was the point.

Textpattern CMS

Textpattern CMS support forum

#13 2017-09-05 19:44:01

Re: What's your "must have" plugin?

#14 2017-09-05 20:36:30

Re: What's your "must have" plugin?

Vienuolis wrote #306854:

#15 2017-09-06 00:04:41

Re: What's your "must have" plugin?

#16 2017-09-06 06:46:38

Re: What's your "must have" plugin?

Bloke wrote #306852:

#17 2017-09-06 10:12:29

Re: What's your "must have" plugin?

colak wrote #306868:

Iki wrote #306861:

#18 2017-09-06 11:10:37

Re: What's your "must have" plugin?

Bloke wrote #306873:

#19 2017-09-06 12:26:02

Re: What's your "must have" plugin?

#20 2017-09-06 13:49:46

Re: What's your "must have" plugin?

philwareham wrote #306875:

#21 2017-09-06 14:33:03

Re: What's your "must have" plugin?

etc wrote #306863:

#22 2017-09-06 16:21:43

Re: What's your "must have" plugin?

colak wrote #306877:

#23 2017-09-06 18:39:31

Re: What's your "must have" plugin?

GugUser wrote #306881:

#24 2017-09-06 18:45:22

Re: What's your "must have" plugin?

colak wrote #306884:

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