I'm taking time out (10 minutes) to release this MooTools plugin that I cobbled together for a site I'm working on.
It's based on 'SimpleTabs' by Harald Kirschner and various sliding tab thingies that aren't nestable, don't work with MooTools 1.2, don't work with IE6 or some combination of any or all of the above
I'm releasing it since I've learned lots about MooTools in the process (although I suspect that a code review may suggest otherwise - I'm no MooTools guru) and gained a lot from the work of others.
Unfortunately; what with me being simultaneously extremely busy, extremely lazy and not very good at documentation, for the moment you're just going to have to make do with a link to the Javascript, the CSS (at the end of the file) and the live examples below.
Setup and usage is similar to SimpleTabs but slightly less simple.
I'm happy to answer (sensible) questions, but I just don't have the time right now to do a nice neatly packaged demo page with instructions.
Operating out of a top secret bunker somewhere in southern France, the Murmatrons offer to you the eclectic mix of high-brow philosophical socio-economic and geopolitical analysis via the medium of animated gifs.
I've been pondering the mysteries of the next version of my SuperCache-PlusWordPress plugin which may include some useful extra functionality. The dilemma is that compared to the existing functionality, it's relatively complicated to use and thus it's relatively easy to make a big mess with it. Thus, it has come to pass that I've written this article about it - to test the level of interest versus the risk of having to deal with a barrage of “Ur shitty plugin broke my blog”.
The basic idea is that instead of just caching each full page, you also cache the bits that fit together to make the page. I'm not talking about query caching or object-caching that already exists in WordPress; I'm talking about the final rendered components of the page like the post and comment text.
None of this is particularly new or exciting - there are loads of sites out there doing it - but I'm unaware of any other attempts to do this with WordPress in a way that's accessible to anyone prepared to devote a bit of brain-power to the process.
To set the scene, let's confine our attention to just two things - the text of the posts and comments. Say we have a post that has 100 comments. What currently happens with SuperCache-Plus when a new comment gets added? Simple - The cached pages with that post_ID get removed from the cache along with any cached pages that have no post_ID. The next request for that page (which is most likely the redirect for whoever posted the comment) must rebuild the page from scratch. The next anonymous request will do the same thing. All the plugins that filter and format your comments will be run to regenerate content that hasn't even changed.
Imagine now a better world where adding that comment only requires that single comment to be rendered and the page gets built from 100 cached comments plus the new one. That's a lot less work and based on my observations so far will never (unlike some other caching strategies) merit a warning that it may make your site slower.
“Chewbacca is a Wookiee from the planet Kashyyyk, but Chewbacca lives on the planet Endor.”
“Now, think about that Mr Speaker. That DOES NOT MAKE SENSE!”
“Why would a Wookiee, an eight-foot tall Wookiee, want to live on Endor, with a bunch of two-foot tall Ewoks?”
“That DOES NOT MAKE SENSE!”
“But more important, you have to ask yourself Mr Speaker: What does this have to do with the current economic crisis? Nothing. Mr Speaker, it has nothing to do with the current economic crisis! It does NOT MAKE SENSE!”
“Look at me. I'm the Chancellor of the Exchequer defending the bankrupt UK economy, and I'm talkin' about Chewbacca! Does that make sense? Mr Speaker, I am not making any sense! None of this makes sense!”
“And so Mr Speaker; the honourable members of this house have to remember, when they're in the lobbies deliberatin' and conjugatin' the Emancipation Proclamation - Does it make sense?”
“No! Mr Speaker and honourable members of this supposed Parliament, it DOES NOT MAKE SENSE!”
“If Chewbacca lives on Endor, you must have faith in the Royal Bank of Scotland!”
Update 2008-10-09
Captain Wookiee has now announced the golden parachute ‘bail-out’ package for the UK's scumbag money thieves banks. Thankfully, the problem in the UK is nowhere near as bad as in the United States, so the UK taxpayer only needs to underwrite another £400 billion slush fund on top of the more-than-generous £100 billion in handouts already made. That works out at a bargain-basement £16,000 each. If you convert to dollars, you can see that with the much smaller UK economy and the much less serious problem it's only $860 billion dollars, a paltry sum dwarfed by the $900 billion or so that's been doled out to ‘fix’ the mess on the other side of the pond.
Globally, over $2 trillion has been picked out of the public pocket and they haven't even got warmed up yet...
“What's that? Credit Default Swaps? Credit Default Options? I've no idea what you're talking about. Hey! Look over there at the funny monkey!”
Murmatron ‘Twilight Zone’ Correspondent
Credits: Alistair Darling's economic policy is based on the ‘Chewbacca defense’.
In our utopian world of 2008, if your memory serves you correctly, poverty has been abolished for so long that you can't even remember what it means.
It's good that you can't remember, because in our modern global village of plenty, poverty is rightfully the domain of those horrible godless foreigners from Africa and suchlike.
But wait... There's a new kid on the block - “Fuel Poverty” - and your government is doing everything in its power to eradicate it before it gets a hold of our brave new world.
Fuel Poverty(fyū'əl pŏv'ər-tē)
noun.
The state of having to spend more than 10% of disposable income to keep your fleet of private jets running. Cost-cutting measures on imported Cuban cigars and vintage Cognac may be necessary.
The state of having to spend more than 10% of disposable income on heating so that you don't die of hypothermia. Cost-cutting measures such as eating left-over cat-food may be necessary.
As you can see, it affects the rich and not-so-rich alike. It's a disease that, left untreated, could shatter the fragile myths that our utopia is founded upon.
Remember - Poverty is a state of mind that is punishable by an on-the-spot fine of £120. Cat-food is tasty and nutritious.
Apparently American president George W. Bush believes something along the lines of “..businesses that have made bad decisions should go out of business”.
You might think that you'd be forgiven for thinking that you could walk into your local bank and, with presidential blessing, tell them to go and fuck themselves.
You would of course be wrong, but that's only because you haven't yet read this handy guide to the global financial crisis.
So pull on your best blue and white stripey shirt and comfy silk waistcoat (like that cock with the dodgy Dutch accent that was just on the BBC a few minutes ago), crack open another bottle of '47 Cheval Blanc and make sure the keys to the Aston Martin are in the hands of your designated driver as we dive headlong into the aforementioned reasons presented to you in the form of a list.
Hot on the coat-tails of the plugin formerly known as eAccelerator WP-Super Cache, we would have liked you to be present at the ceremonial release of the all new 'eAccelerator WordPress Object Cache'.
Our inability to get the invites out in time however, means that you missed the ceremony and will have to get up to speed using this lack-lustre blog post instead.
