Any Speed Impact

[rav4club]

Bit of a general question, but is there any speed impact of having a bunch of Plug-ins installed and enabled on your forum?


My forum is still very new, having built it on 2nd Feb (so just 11 days ago) and only have 60 members (that defected from my old Forum at tapatalk).   As it starts getting busier, can I expect any slowdowns, especially for Plug-ins using Super Keys?

I have chosen Plug-ins that (IMO) add value to the users experince rather then just for fun (exception is the Chess and Chess Notification Plug-ins), so there are none that I would plan to remove, but is this something I need to bear in mind?  What is the typical number of plugs that Forum Admins run?  (I have 27, using 4 keys and 2 super keys).
I see some Plug-ins mention associated ones should be installed and above that one, but apart from those does it matter about order?

[Brian]

Hi, rav4club.

The impact on your page load time is going to depend on which plugins you install and how many. Most of the more complex plugins in the library use Javascript to execute their code when the page runs. Javascript is run completely client-side and relies on the user's browser and their computer's processing power to execute. The more Javascript the browser has to run through, the longer it's going to take for the browser to finish processing it and finalizing the page.

To give you an easily visible example, you'll notice if you reload this page that my mini-profile next to this post shows up like everyone else's for just a brief moment before changing into my special custom one produced by the Custom Mini-Profile Creator plugin. The delay that causes that is primarily due to the time it takes for the browser to execute that plugin's Javascript.

This is expecially prominent on my profile's Recent Posts page where it has to do that 15 times in a row:
support.proboards.com/user/33409/recent

Feb 13, 2018 9:51:00 GMT -8 rav4club said:

As it starts getting busier, can I expect any slowdowns, especially for Plug-ins using Super Keys?

The server's speed in delivering the page will remain the same regardless of how many users are browsing it at one time. The amount of plugins you have installed doesn't affect how quickly the server delivers it to you.

The presence of super keys doesn't really have an impact on loading speed. When their data is present on the page it gets added to the head of the document for Javascript to reference but the impact this has on your load time is extremely negligible. The real impact comes from whether or not the plugin makes changes to the page when the key data is present on the page. A plugin that transforms posts containing key data might not run on a page that doesn't contain any, but on a page that contains 15 posts that need to be transformed it can take significantly longer to complete the execution of its code.

Feb 13, 2018 9:51:00 GMT -8 rav4club said:

I see some Plug-ins mention associated ones should be installed and above that one, but apart from those does it matter about order?

The order of your plugins determines the order in which their scripts are loaded on the page. This only really matters for plugins that explicitly state they're required to be above or below others as a plugin can't reference the code of another plugin if that other plugin hasn't run yet.

[rav4club]

Thanks for the fast response, Brian.
You have confirmed what I was thinking (but with much greater detail, which is fantastic).

I'll have a look at my plug-in order as well and see if changing the order might make changes after page loaded (such as like you describe your mini-profile reload) less visible (or invisible even).

I haven't noticed any issues to date, but like to preempt any issues as the Forum starts to pick up speed again after its wilderness period at TT!

PS.  Just refreshed the page a few times to watch your Mini-profile reload ... As you say, it is clear to see the profile changing but it is no big deal at all I think (and I am running on a fairly basic Laptop running an Intel i3 Processor at 1.3GHz so certainly nothing special) so happy not to be concerned