5high-photohub

[5high-photohub]

@zafari – I’d tried W3 TC on another site but had issues with setting it up with BPS – my fault not theirs. Also do read the info in the link i added above as there was a really useful rview of all the main caching plugins + it reinfirces that there’s not a ‘best one’ just the best one for your individual setup with your site and server, so you have to test!

[5high-photohub]

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[5high-photohub]

You’re welcome – it’s always a bonus to find some good info in the forums!

Our host gave us 512M – they obviously got fed up of me! and we also set max_upload and max_ post size to 512M. I have access to all settings in my wp-config.php and .php.ini file but they needed to ensure the server config matched my settings.

I’ve just done a final tweak of the Zen Cache Pro settings today: I disabled their ‘Auto-cache Engine’ as I was concerned about using up too much of our resources and the site seemed to have slowed down, and i enabled the Trial component ‘HTML Compression’ for everything. It’s made a BIGdifferent as it’s compressed the BP and extra plugins js and css into much fewer files; now only 17 files to load rather than 64! VERY pleased!

If you have any other ideas pleas share 🙂 Thanks.

[5high-photohub]

@zafari – well, I’ve totally scrambled my brain by trying to work out all the possible options!

What I’ve worked through is this:
1. added the code to remove query strings (as mentioned above), though I’ve since learnt that this only usually shaves a few ms off load times;
2. ensured I have only the absolute necessary plugins i need, and delete all others (including themes)
3. ensured we were only using the minimum of special Google fonts (x2 sets), downloaded them + the necessary css and trialed self hosting them – to stop a page from having to get them from another server/source. But being on shared hosting it was actually slower than coming from Google, so i reverted back! See my thread here: https://archived.seventhqueen.com/forums/topic/improve-page-load-times-with-google-fonts
4. have had lots of discussions with my hosting company who have double checked my php memory etc, increased some of our available resources, got them to enable ‘Keep Alive’ and GZip’ on at the server level (search on Google gives some interesting reading for these);
5. got some great advice on the BPS Pro (Bullet Proof Security) forum, which included adding the correct redirect code to my .htaccess file for http to https and non-www to www redirects, which improved it heaps! you can read the info here; http://forum.ait-pro.com/forums/topic/remove-query-strings-from-static-resources/
6. also from this topic I trialled different caching plugins and found after loads of testing that Zen Cache was better for me than Hyper cache (installation info with BPS is here: http://forum.ait-pro.com/forums/topic/zen-cache-setup-with-bps-pro/) and I now use Zen Cache pro as it enables me to cache for our logged in members, and works well with s2member of course!
7. added some of the extra speed up code recommended via Zen Cache to the Speed Boost custom code already added in BPS .htaccess custom code;
8. After I’d manually optimised my databases I installed the WP Optimise plugin as this was going to be easier for ongoing management for me;
9. decided against WP SmushIt plugin as it was going to be tricky to install with BPS (for me anyway) – though i might have to revisit this at some point;
10. am now trialing ‘html compression’ in my Zen Cache settings, which will condense the css and js scripts in the header etc – a big issue for Buddypress i think.
11. also already have the gzip/compression code (‘deflate’ thingy) in my htaccess via BPS plugin.
12. am reviewing the plugin load time/resource useage of rtmedia for Buddypress plugin, as it seems to take heaps longer than any other – still under review!

Zen Cache definitely helped heaps – but then I’d done all my testing without a caching plugin to try to optimize everything first. It’s hard on a shared server, but the site is new and our membership is still small so no other option as yet. However our hosting people did say that they could swop us to a different server with fewer sites on which might improve things? Don’t quite understand how that works, but you never know… so that’s still a future option!

Sorry it’s long-winded but hope some of it helps?

Cheers.

[5high-photohub]

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[5high-photohub]

@empoweredanim – Has the latest kleo update sorted out the styling issues for the s2m profiles in Safari on macs? Cheers, J

[5high-photohub]

@ radu,
don’t worry, I’ve decided not to use it as I think the Kleo search box is fine for our needs. So I won’t use the search plugin.
Thanks, J

[5high-photohub]

Hi Abe,

Well, I was really looking forward to the Kleo or BP popup login box to start working properly with the new Kleo update – but it was not to be!

I have updated everything and the Kleo popup login does redirect to the set page but ONLY for admins. It still has the same problem as I originally posted here (on March 14th) for USERS logging in with it – namely it doesn’t auto redirect but says your already logged in and you need to refresh the page.

If you want to look at it again I can set up a test user account and a test login link for our site – just let me know. But it’s easy to reproduce as when i did all my tests on a clean install it only occurred with the Kleo theme active and the s2member pro. plugin.

Look forward to your thoughts on this.

[5high-photohub]

Brilliant! Love it – thanks so much Radu and Laura – awesome support as ever!
Cheers.

[5high-photohub]

Hi Radu,
Sorry about the delay, only just got back to this. Currently this is only on my local test server, so once I’ve sorted out the final blips with the rtmedia and theme update locally, I’ll update on my live site and then post back here.
Cheers.

[5high-photohub]

Thanks Radu,

On review of some webpage tests it actually looks like the actual fonts load more slowly from our server, than when they came from Google Fonts – possibly because we’re on a slower hosting system…

So, after all this I’m going to uninstall our locally hosted fonts and just get them from Google after all!

But hopefully this might help inform others though – maybe good if you have a fast hosting package, but probably not if you’re on a shared hosting environment.

Cheers,
J

[5high-photohub]

Update:
downloaded the fonts and obtained the css for them via http://www.localfont.com/ which is an excellent resource.
uploaded the fonts themselves into a new font folder in my child-theme/assets/font/
edited the url in the css code to reflect the fonts location on my server
added this code into the top of my child theme style.css as per recommendations

The css i used was this (+ the one for the Open Sans too):

COPY CODE

@font-face {
  font-family: 'Roboto Condensed';
  font-weight: 300;
  font-style: normal;
  src: url('https://www.mysite.com/wp-content/themes/kleo-child/assets/font/Roboto-Condensed-300.eot');
  src: url('https://www.mysite.com/wp-content/themes/kleo-child/assets/font/Roboto-Condensed-300.eot?#iefix') format('embedded-opentype'),
       local('Roboto Condensed Light'),
       local('Roboto-Condensed-300'),
       url('https://www.mysite.com/wp-content/themes/kleo-child/assets/font/Roboto-Condensed-300.woff2') format('woff2'),
       url('https://www.mysite.com/wp-content/themes/kleo-child/assets/font/Roboto-Condensed-300.woff') format('woff'),
       url('https://www.mysite.com/wp-content/themes/kleo-child/assets/font/Roboto-Condensed-300.ttf') format('truetype'),
       url('https://www.mysite.com/wp-content/themes/kleo-child/assets/font/Roboto-Condensed-300.svg') format('svg');
}

All works OK, but on review in the webpagetest results, although it is now using the fonts from my server it’s still calling/accessing http://fonts.googleapis.com.

So i have 2 questions:

1. Do you know where the http://fonts.googleapis.com is being called from? is it being called by the Kleo theme anyway? If so, from where, and how would I stop it? Or is my css code incorrect?

2. in one of your original links (http://stackoverflow.com/questions/8966740/how-to-host-google-web-fonts-on-my-own-server?answertab=votes#tab-top it states you need to add some info into the .htaccess file to stop errors from popping up in Chrome Dev Tools, like this:

COPY CODE

AddType application/vnd.ms-fontobject .eot
AddType font/ttf .ttf
AddType font/otf .otf
AddType application/x-font-woff .woff

Is this still needed?

Many thanks – and have attached a screenshot showing the latest page test a/a.

Any help much appreciated, though I understand this is a bit beyond the scope of your support forum!

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[5high-photohub]

Many thanks – am reading all about it before i commit to self-hosting. Once sorted I’ll post ‘easy steps’ in case others like me are interested.
Cheers.

[5high-photohub]

Hi Radu,

Brilliant resource, thank you. This is all new to me but it does seem ‘doable’ especially using the http://www.localfont.com/ link (though it doesn’t actually include the css in it’d download files, but does gives the css needed seperately. I presume I could put them into any part of wp-content? or is there a recommended folder for fonts?

Thanks again for your help,

J

[5high-photohub]

Thanks for that, as I’m still undecided about using the W3TC as I believe it’s a bit tricky to set up with Buddypress – also I really messed it up on another site as it has to play nicely with Bullet Proof Security. All the steps are documented but i found it a bit challenging.

Among the many articles I’ve read recently I did find this one (http://premium.wpmudev.org/blog/why-trying-to-get-95-on-google-pagespeed-insights-will-drive-you-mad/) with the advice to ‘Optimise your database’, which i plan to try next via my php admin. From what you say maybe that would help you, if you’ve not already gone that route?

Thanks again, Jenny

[5high-photohub]

Hi Radu,

Thanks for the informative links – I am aware that it’s best to use a limited number of fonts (for many reasons) and I will double check that we’re only using the subsets of them, but I think we are. Plus I’m looking at ensuring the max-time is increased for caching of static resources.

I guess what I’d like to know is whether the Kleo theme has integrated best practice into it’s use of google fonts? and of the fontello icons, as they are another one that needs a seperate SSL validation on page load?

many thanks,

J

[5high-photohub]

@rasmusberg – I’m having similar issues with very slow page load times, and am working through various things. And I’ve just had a HUGE improvement by removing the query strings – you can see the thread here: https://archived.seventhqueen.com/forums/topic/how-do-i-sovle-this-query-issues-due-to-the-stings-with if you’re interested.

If you find any great solutions please consider posting them as I’m sure there are heaps of other Kleo users who’d appreciate it! Thanks.

[5high-photohub]

@dolphspeed99 – I’m having similar issues with very slow page load times, and am working through various things. And I’ve just had a HUGE improvement by removing the query strings – see the thread here: https://archived.seventhqueen.com/forums/topic/how-do-i-sovle-this-query-issues-due-to-the-stings-with if you’re interested.

If you find any great solutions please consider posting them as I’m sure there are heaps of other Kleo users who’d appreciate it, as it can’t just be us that are having this problem! Thanks.

[5high-photohub]

sorry, forgot the screenshots…

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[5high-photohub]

FYI I’ve just retested my page load after adding this code (i used the version given by the Remove Query Strings plugin author here: http://www.paulund.co.uk/remove-query-string-stylesheets#):

COPY CODE

function pu_remove_script_version( $src ){
return remove_query_arg( 'ver', $src );
}
add_filter( 'script_loader_src', 'pu_remove_script_version' );
add_filter( 'style_loader_src', 'pu_remove_script_version' );

and it now loads 5 – 6 secs faster for first load and 2 secs faster for repeat loads! Admittedly my site was super slow (hence trying everything to fix it) but this still seems impressive!

And so far I’ve not seen any problems/errors…

Thanks for putting this up here too Radu, otherwise i might not have found it!

[5high-photohub]

@serge – did it work? if so can you confirm what worked (ie. was it the exact code above in your child theme functions.php or slightly different? as I’ve found a few variations of this via Google).

Also did it in fact speed up your page load at all?

Any info would be appreciated as I’m looking to do this too.

many thanks.

[5high-photohub]

Thanks – panic over!

[5high-photohub]

Update: that addition to my child theme functions.php works fine. For anyone else, this s it:

COPY CODE

add_action( 'init', 'my_add_excerpts_to_pages' );
function my_add_excerpts_to_pages() {
     add_post_type_support( 'page', 'excerpt' );
}

😉

[5high-photohub]

OK thanks – will do or may revisit the layout anyway.
Cheers.

[5high-photohub]

@sharmstr, thanks for checking this out – I’d been going mad trying to track it down!
Do you think it best to await the outcome from VC, rather than rush to install another plugin? Or I’ve read there’s some code i can add into the functions.php to add in page excerpts which might be best – just don’t want to do anything that might clash with VC and Kleo.
Cheers.

[5high-photohub]

Hi there,

Well this is really weird – I’m using the VC ‘Post Masonry Grid’ where you can choose the ‘data source’. I’ve chosen ‘page’ as the source, and I’m 99% certain that for the first 2 pages I was able to edit the page Excerpt in the page itself, as this was how I controlled the length of the excerpt and thus the size of the ‘box’ (ie. the Grid element) which kept them nicely in alignment. Screenshot attached to show how previous page excerpts had been edited to keep horizontal alignment…

So I’m thinking there are 2 options that might have effected this:
– Either from a recent w/p update, or a glitch with VC?
– OR could it possibly be related to the additional code I put in for increasing the length of the POST excerpt for increasing the length of excerpt showing in the ‘Kleo Post Grid – small left thumb’? The code info is here: https://archived.seventhqueen.com/forums/topic/how-to-increase-the-amount-of-excerpt-showing.

Would appreciate your ideas, as there definitely used to be a way to easily edit the page excerpt, without any extra plugins!

Thanks.

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[5high-photohub]

What a shame that they’re getting rid of button 2! Is that true for the full VC plugin or for the VC that comes packaged with the Kleo theme?
And will it adversely effect button 2s already in the site?

[5high-photohub]

in Theme Options > General settings – Quick css
Would be interested to know if this fixes it as I can’t repoduce it anyway 🙂

[5high-photohub]

Hi again,

No we don’t use W3 as I found it really hard to set up with BPS on a previous site (my inabilities, not the fault of BPS!).

However we do use the recommended Speed Boost code in the .htaccess file, which is meant to be really effective. Here’s the link to the article: http://forum.ait-pro.com/forums/topic/htaccess-caching-code-speed-boost-cache-code/.

BUT when I tested it all fully on a clean install (see above on April 11th post) it was clearly due to a conflict between the Kleo theme and the s2member plugin, as BPS was not installed here, so no caching involved.

Cheers.

[5high-photohub]

Update:

Our hosting provider has increased the php memory limit to 512M, so hopefully it should all run smoothly now.

If we get more php fatal out of memory errors I’ll followup here, as it will then be more likely related to the js composer itself. Also even with the significantly increased memory, the js composer runs really slowly – I realise it’s a complex plugin but it is frustratingly slow. Any ideas to speed it up would be appreciated!

[5high-photohub]

OK, I understand now – will contact them to sort it out and will give follow up back here FYI in case this isn’t the issue.

[5high-photohub]

Hi there,
sorry for the delay in my reply – I’ve just checked it on Safari for windows and it looks exactly the same as on Firefox.
maybe it looks different on a mac? or iphone?
Would be interested to hear the outcome/fix for this though.
Good luck!

[5high-photohub]

Thanks Abe,
only just able to get back to looking at this, but I’m obviously missing something – where did you get the x2 1024’s from (above) to divide into the ‘allocated 73662464’ number?
Cheers.

[5high-photohub]

OK – added to wishlist request.

[5high-photohub]

Many thanks.

[5high-photohub]

Just to let you know that that css selector doesn’t work -but I have at last tracked down WHICH bit of the kleo theme options > styling options effects the small open/close toggles on the mobile menu. It’s the Header > border color!
Unfortunately i didn’t want a border, so had to remove it with extra css, as too for the sub-menu border. So OK now.

What would be really really useful sharmstr is for a bit more info to be added into the theme docs, making it clear just what bits the theme styling options affects, as it’s hard to work it out, particularly if you’re using a small color palette. maybe I’ll add this to the wish list? Cheers.

[5high-photohub]

Hi Abe,
just had a chance to review it all again – I’ve updated Kleo, BP, rtmedia, and akismet today to most recent and otherwise only have s2member pro as the only other plugin on my test site. Just retested the s2m MOP variables ([s2MOP]…[/s2MOP]) and they now seem to be working fine! Also tested it on my live site which also has other plugins and still all works as expected now! Fantastic!
No idea why it didn’t work before, even on the clean install test site, but all fine now so no need for any further investigation!
Many thanks again.

[5high-photohub]

Hi Abe, many thanks – much appreciated.

Cheers.

[5high-photohub]

Actually I wasn’t asking for a css selector – just which part of the Kleo theme options effected it (settings in the wp admin theme options) as I just can’t find it! But thanks for the pointer anyway.

[5high-photohub]

Brilliant! Thanks Sharmstr – it even scales OK too.

Many thanks to all for your excellent help.

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