I'm just back from Oktoberfest and after so many beers I'm ready to expose here some news about Icy Phoenix.
Before going further on what I'm planning about Icy Phoenix Development I would like to point out that I still don't know if the future version of Icy Phoenix will be similar to the current one. I'm also considering the opportunity to release a small package which contains only the CMS and to all the other stuff is currently included into Icy Phoenix. I'll let you know further on during the development phase.
Having said that... I would like you to know that I'm re-coding some core files of Icy Phoenix to improve performances and scalability. I have ported some phpBB 3 features which I find useful and I have also coded some new ones. If the local testing phase will be successful I will upgrade this site with a brand new version (I mean the core part) which should improve performances noticeably.
Just to give you some extra flavour about what I'm working at, here are some details:
- DB Connection Module has been improved (many functions ported from phpBB 3) and I have added a better errors tracking using backtrace (similar to phpBB 3).
- More than 3800 queries has been revised to comply with the new connection module, it took me 2 weeks to review all of them... that's a lot of work, and it's highly likely that some errors have been introduced. That's the price to pay for improvements. We will fix them.
- I have definitely integrated phpBB 3 Cache System and rewritten some of the old caching functions integrated into Icy Phoenix. The objective is to manage cache in a more efficient way, because under certain conditions cache may result in extra and unwanted CPU charge. I have completed about 30% of this stage.
- I'm working at the Forum Structure mainly for 2 objectives: optimize the charge when generating the tree structure and increasing the compatibility with phpBB 3.
- SEO is also on my priority list, and I'm also working in improving how pages are generated, mainly links, meta tags and core html tags. I have finished some of the main features, but I still need to complete a couple of extra things to improve how pages are indexed.
That's all for now, I will let you know when I will upgrade this site, so you can help me in debugging all the new features... there will be a lot to do!
Thanks for reading, and if you have extra questions I will try to answer if I can.