devot:eeDevoted to ExpressionEngine

Updates to the EE 2.0-Ready Add-On Page, and Speed Improvements

November 25, 2009
by Ryan Masuga

EE 2.0 Ready Add-ons Area

We greatly beefed up the EE 2.0-Ready add-on area this week. We've added a number of filters and different ways to look at add-on statuses. We now have top 50 lists, alphanumeric lists, and lists of add-ons by top developer to help you better visualize at a glance what stage add-ons are at. The page is now a roadmap in itself, in that, if a projected date is known for any add-on (or if an add-on is to be discontinued), it will be listed here so you don't have to visit numerous sites to see when something will be ready. There are four states for add-ons in this area:

1. Grey - Nothing known about 2.0 status; no news
2. Yellow - There is a projected date for porting to 2.0 (look for a brief note about date)
3. Green - The add-on is EE 2.0 ready
4. Red - The add-on is not being ported, or is being discontinued (look for brief note/explanation)

Check out a page like Brandon Kelly's to see examples of projected dates and discontinued items, or view the letter "C", for example, to see examples of some add-ons that are 2.0-ready in the midst of those for which we have no updates. Of course, we still offer links to developers' sites if they are listing their own roadmaps. Our motto for add-ons in the transition period from 1.x to 2.0 is "If we don't know, nobody knows", and we mean it. Our goal is to provide you more information in one place than you'll be able to get anywhere else. If you have ideas for other ways you'd like to see this filtered, or would like a filter added for any other developers, just contact us with your suggestions.

Speed Improvements

We know you don't come to the site to wait around for pages to load, so we've been taking action over the past two weeks. We've made use of Solspace's Template Morsels in order to speed up the site. Using Morsels, we were able to increase performance on the homepage by at least 25%, and in a few cases we took a couple pages from a few hundred queries to less than 60. We're looking at every single template trying to reduce overhead by eliminating embeds, Morsel-izing things, and otherwise using EE-caching techniques where we haven't already. As we get better and more knowledgeable about EE and caching, we'll apply what we learn to the site to keep things snappy. As always, thanks for visiting the site. We hope it helps empower your ExpressionEngine development.