WPFF Refactored
Ludo released the refactored version of his WordPress Fast Frontend yesterday - you can download it here. I’ve been looking forward to this release since my review of the last version. I tried earlier versions on my test server, but never attempted the conversion of my actual site - until now.
What’s new? Well, it Ludo has addressed some of my concerns, including opening up the template scheme and doing some serious refactoring. Open up index.php now and you’ll see only four lines of code - quite a change from the four hundred line file in the earlier releases! And there’s even a promising new plug-in system. Of course, without documentation you’ll have to be pretty sharp with PHP to figure out how it works.
The conversion from WP 1.5 templates to the WPFF templates wasn’t too difficult since I’m used to similar template systems. Just a matter of ripping out all of the <?php ?> tags and using the {} style tags. The result is a much cleaner template overall. The only trick is replacing dynamic code - you’ll have to hack that in directly or, better yet, with a plug-in. Check out my online test - note that I haven’t ported over any custom code yet.
“But is it faster?” you’re wondering. Surprisingly, my test server rendered it only about twice as fast. At about half the queries, that makes sense but it’s much slower than the last release. The real test was my online server, which rendered WPFF pages about five times faster than WP1.5 (an install which I’ve optimized, I might add). Five times is good enough for me!
Overall I’m pretty happy with it, although it still needs some work. For example, the template system still feels too rigid and I don’t like the departure from WordPress’ standard GET/POST keys. I’ve also found a few bugs (all minor) and made a few enhancements. Ludo, I can send you a patch if you’re interested. If you’re not comfortable with PHP or hacking your mod_rewrite rules then I would stick with WordPress.
If there’s enough interest, I can write up some details on the conversion process.
Wow, that was fast! :)
ludo — 13-Feb-2005 02:17I am definitely interested in your patch. Guess I'll have to accept Matt's offer to move WPFF to WP's new Subversion repository system, so that interested developers can participate.
Can you expand a bit more on what you miss in WPFF and new features it needs?
Strange, a bug I don't see in my sites. Seems the comments display code is missing a stripslashes().
ludo — 13-Feb-2005 02:17Looks like it's on the comment entry side - display is corrupted on the regular site too. I'll send you the patch and other details tomorrow.
jerome — 13-Feb-2005 02:22"magic_quotes_gpc" is the culprit. It's enabled on my live site but not my test server - probably also the case for yours. Just trying a patch now.
jerome — 13-Feb-2005 21:20Unstable 0.99 beta1
Thanks to Jerome who sent me a few patches, and Matt who noticed thet the templates produced non-XHTML compliant pages, I am releasing 0.99.0 beta1. Documentation is still in the works, expect it for the final 0.99 release. As for speed, Jerome confirm...
WordPress Fast Frontend — 14-Feb-2005 03:54