NOTE: *
NOT* for the faint of heart. You've been warned
Before I begin, allow me to say that this is meant mostly for Hal and whoever else codes scripts for the TFP. Another thing is that I *
do* realize the sheer amount of work that would have to be done on the original vBulletin engine itself for this to work, and I know that I myself would *
not* do it unless I was getting paid-- which makes it likely that this won't happen--, but here is my insane idea anyway.
Make the TFP turn every page into a plain HTML page, and have every link refering to TFP's thread's boards point instead to that HTML page. I've noticed that nearly 100% of the content found on TFP is generated on an on-demand basis, and I would imagine that this causes most of the stress on the server. I know that you'd have to re-work the core engine of the vBulletin itself in order to accomplish this, and I don't necessarily think that you guys should do it, but it would vastly increase access speeds, I think.
I know that the following problems are present: 3 different color schemes means at least three versions of *
every single page* Not only this, but each board can be costomized by the user to display posts only starting from "the last day" to "show all threads" which is 12 different options. So far this is at least 36 HTML page versions for each board, not to mention each individual page if the board has a ton of posts. Then we'd have to take into account the "default posts per thread", with 8 options, so at least 24 HTML pages per page of each thread, assuming the thread has enough posts to warrant more than one page. Then of course each user has the time stamp for each post/edit adjusted to the time zone they selected, but this might not be too much of a problem if you created a directory in the server for each time zone and then categorized all 19k users via some index to their proper directory, this way the server would not have to check which version of the page to give the user (at least as far as what adjusted time to display), just direct them to the version of the page that resides in the directory in which their username exists-- all this of course to avoid creating the same HTML page over and over. Anyways, thats 25 different directories (you know, one for each time zone) Then things start getting nuts when someone changes a preference that reflects onto their actual posts, such as when they change their avatar (unless the URL/filename of the avatar remains the same) or when they change their signature. This would likely produce conflicts with people trying to post and someone else changing their preferences at the same time. I suppose the server would have to place people on a queue and have them wait until the previous person has finished their business, then it will process the next user's request. Hmm... ok, so maybe it *
wouldn't* increase efficiency
But it would if the TFP wasn't so customizable!
Not saying that being able to customize the way TFP looks is a bad thing, just... dunno, programmer's ramblings are of the strangest kind
Ok, just finished reading through this and it is very ramble-ish and doesn't make sense somtimes. I apologize, and I am in the process of polishing it off
