Comments on: How’s the speed?

By: Jared

Jared — Wed, 04 Jan 2017 21:23:00 +0000

Justin – if you use the Fastest Cache plugin. It will COMBINE the JavaScript for you automatically. So you don’t have to worry about upgrading your blog theme over time.

By: Timothy

Timothy — Wed, 04 Jan 2017 15:27:47 +0000

Re: changing themes.

You might want to look at the theme called “Frank”.

http://somerandomdude.com/work/frank/

Frank is bare bones – no Javascript frameworks or unnecessary images, just a simple, fast blogging theme

It only takes 2 requests to load and is only 9kb in page size.

By: Justin Sherrill

Justin Sherrill — Wed, 04 Jan 2017 05:55:01 +0000

Having to fetch Javascript files takes time, I agree. That is a fact that is correct.

I’m looking at the same report you’re reading this advice from, and it shows the javascript files downloading in less time than the overall page data. These files show up as part of this theme – if I consolidate them, I’m going to have to reconsolidate them on every update of the theme.

This looks like extra maintenance work now, and in the future, for no noticeable gain. I’d rather spend my time on changing the layout.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 04 Jan 2017 03:57:58 +0000

Justin, more info on blocking JavaScript

https://developers.google.com/speed/docs/insights/BlockingJS

Quote : “You should avoid and minimize the use of blocking JavaScript, especially external scripts that must be fetched before they can be executed. Scripts that are necessary to render page content can be inlined to avoid extra network requests, however the inlined content needs to be small and must execute quickly to deliver good performance”

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 04 Jan 2017 03:31:03 +0000

Justin, maybe you’re not aware but JavaScript blocks rendering / load time of a web site. So consolidating JavaScript can make a huge improve,ent.

Also, it seems weird to me that this blog even has any JavaScript in use. It’d be worth investigating if the JavaScript is even needed.

By: Justin

Justin — Tue, 03 Jan 2017 19:18:19 +0000

Looking at the online reports, the incremental time of downloading multiple javascript files is less than the time for downloading the base HTML and image for the page itself. Also, if I merge those files together, I lose the ability to automatically upgrade this WordPress install. Based on that, there’s no reason to change those files.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Mon, 02 Jan 2017 21:15:14 +0000

Justin, any reason why this theme has 7 different JS includes and 6 different CSS files?

Instead of the browser ***blocking*** on fetching each JS file, those 7 JS files should be merged into a single file.

Same for the 6 CSS files

By: Justin Sherrill

Justin Sherrill — Mon, 02 Jan 2017 04:36:56 +0000

4k, I agree. I will have to fiddle with the layout. I’d definitely like to compress it more, vertically.

By: i_dont_have_4k

i_dont_have_4k — Sun, 01 Jan 2017 20:40:48 +0000

And a little less glarish white would improve ergonomics.

By: i_dont_have_4k

i_dont_have_4k — Sun, 01 Jan 2017 20:39:59 +0000

People use different devices to view a site, but for me the added whitespace around things forces me to scroll more and lose focus of more surrounding comments than before.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Sun, 01 Jan 2017 18:54:31 +0000

Hi Justin

Looks like I’m a bit dated in my WordPress knowledge. Instead of WP SuperCache … it appears more people use WP Fastest Cache these days.

https://en-gb.wordpress.org/plugins/wp-fastest-cache/

Curious to see if you see benefits using Fastest Cache plugin.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Sun, 01 Jan 2017 18:47:22 +0000

Hi Justin

Looks fantastic.

And to backup your hard work, GTmetrix reports this site now loads in just 3 seconds (previous 4 sec with this new theme and 10 seconds with old theme).

And page size dropped down to 190kb (down from 400kb)

https://gtmetrix.com/reports/www.dragonflydigest.com/3jJE46J1

You’re also now getting an “A” rating.

Only last thing that would be interesting to see is if SuperCache helps any more (though it’s obviously WAAAY improved already).

Site looks awesome.

Love your hard work on this site and amazing daily content.

By: Justin Sherrill

Justin Sherrill — Sun, 01 Jan 2017 18:35:08 +0000

gzip is enabled now – I was leaving that until I saw no problems from the theme change.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Sun, 01 Jan 2017 18:27:04 +0000

In addition to enabling gzip on your web server, the WP Super Cache plugin makes a huge difference.

https://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-super-cache/

Essentially, this plugin caches your home page so WordPress doesn’t have to rebuild it every time someone visits the site.

By: beaker

beaker — Sun, 01 Jan 2017 18:12:06 +0000

there is a little lag with lynx but in gerneral it’s fine.

By: Billy Larlad

Billy Larlad — Sun, 01 Jan 2017 15:57:52 +0000

By chance I am on a slow connection this weekend. Even so, the page seemed to load as quickly as ever.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Sun, 01 Jan 2017 15:24:30 +0000

Looks like GRMetrix is reporting load times dropped from 10 second to 4 seconds.

Looks like if gzip was enabled , it’d be even better.

https://gtmetrix.com/reports/www.dragonflydigest.com/qVs0Weky

I LOVE the theme. Looks way better. Keep up the awesome work.

By: BSDfan

BSDfan — Sun, 01 Jan 2017 15:10:07 +0000

@NotYetPerfect
I agree. That was very usefull.

By: NotYetPerfect

NotYetPerfect — Sun, 01 Jan 2017 14:22:38 +0000

The old theme showed the number of replies on the main page… I somewhat miss that

By: Lazarus

Lazarus — Sun, 01 Jan 2017 11:44:45 +0000

Lazzy likes.