Please, take into account that this is not all set in stone, but I will do my best to keep with the plans, and keep with the release schedule for projects listed here.

GD Products Center

Currently, work is in progress on GD Products Center 1.2. Initial plan was to release it by the end of February. But, the changes involved are too complex, and it will take a bit more time. Plan is to release the new version by March 10. New version will include new comparison basket to replace current widget, new post types for the companies and few more very important changes and fixes. Plans for the plugin beyond this release are still forming, and it will depend on the users feedback. Minor maintenance release will be out as usual after 1.2.

xScape Themes

Another new theme is coming out in late March. Theme will be based on existing Xposed theme. New theme will be called Xposed II, and it will be fully responsive, it will feature use of Smart Responsive Menu and Breadcrumbs, updated responsive Nivo Slider, additional color schemes, improved styling and some minor layout changes. Another theme that will get into development after this one, will be targeted for May release. More on this one will follow, but I already have preliminary design and ideas on how the theme will look like and how it will work.

There are plans for few more themes for this year, and that will include previously announced newsScape II (new one will be loosely based on old one, it will be responsive, and it will have more layout options), new photo/media related theme and resurrection of my very first theme for WordPress called starScape. But that will wait for summer and autumn of this year.

GD Star Rating

I know I am a year or so late with GD Star Rating 2.0, but as I said before, other projects had priority over it. But, development continues, and I will release new Alpha by the end of April and another Alpha by the end of May. I hope that these will be last two Alpha releases before moving to Beta.

Plugins Maintenance

GD Custom Posts and Taxonomies Tools Pro will get one more maintenance release in first half of March. GD bbPress Toolbox will get one or two new versions in March (bbPress 2.3 compatibility). Same goes for free bbPress plugins.

Dev4Press Redesign

In the next 3 months I plan to redesign Dev4Press website completely to use skyScape theme. There are many custom templates build for current theme, and it will take some time to complete.

That’s it for now. If you have suggestions or bugs to report, please use the forums.

New version has a long changelog. Bugs fixed from previous alpha include: problems with panels (saving, rendering), problems with auto insertion, various rendering issues, problems with templates and bunch of PHP notices and warnings. Plugin now uses latest gdr2 and gdT3 libraries. Also, jQueryUI is updated to 1.9.1. Many plugin areas are improved, with focus on stability of the plugin admin side interface and auto insertion of the rating code.

Different Rating Blocks

From the rating standpoint, standard single stars rating is improved, loader displayed when vote is saved, and now you don’t need to use stars at all. Plugin supports switching stars display to: plain text links, radio items or dropdown list. This way you can style the block anyway you want, and you can use it for different things that don’t necessarily need you to show graphics. Also, stnadard thumbs rating is also working, and it also features display using text links, radio items or dropdown list.

There are some known issues with some of the admin panels that will be fixed soon. I am not going to give any definitive dates about next releases, but development is now back on track, and it shouldn’t be too long for next alpha. Plan for next alpha is to expand on rating methods and improvements to rating objects, templates and rendering. I hope to finish all core elements with 2 more alpha releases, followed by Beta.

bbPress module (internal) will be completed for next Alpha #4. BuddyPress module is planned for Beta #1. Previously announced modules and graphic packs will be available from Beta #1.

GD Custom Posts and Taxonomies Tools Pro is the first of Dev4Press plugins for WordPress to get modules. Ever since 3.5 version, plugin core is modified and prepared to support modules. Some of the plugin basic features are even included as internal modules you can disable. But, tomorrow first real module will be released, and it is called Index. This module takes advantage of internal modular infrastructure of the GD CPT Tools Pro plugin and it hooks into various areas of the plugin and WordPress to add complete new functionality. Module depends on the plugin, and it can’t work without it. GD Products Center and upcoming GD Star Rating 2.0 also are module ready, and will get own share of modules over time.

There will be 3 different classes of modules: Basic, Graphics and Advanced. Modules are not free. But they are free if you have required licenses for the plugin module is written for or plugins pack. Basic and graphics modules class is available for free with developer or enterprise licenses, and Advanced is available with enterprise license. If you have Personal or Standard license for plugin or plugins pack, you need to purchase module. So, when Index module for GD CPT Tools Pro is released tomorrow, all users with valid Developer/Enterprise license for GD CPT Tools Pro or Dev4Press Plugins Pack can download and use Index module. You can check out Modules FAQ here.

To download and get support for the module, you must have license for the plugin module is written for or plugins pack. Module license on its own is useless, it is dependent on the plugin or plugins pack license, it is an expansion of that license. If you have any questions about modules, please leave a comment or use contact form.

Products using gdr2_Shortcodes

• xScape Theme Framework (from 1.8.3, with access control)
• GD Custom Posts and Taxonomies Tools Pro (from 3.7, with access control)
• GD Products Center Pro (from 1.1.1, with access control)

More products will support this, and that includes: GD Products Center and GD Star Rating.

Access Control with Attributes

You can limit shortcode rendering so that you can hide content from some users (or visitors). There are several attributes added to shortcodes that will control this limitation. Each shortcode for supported products will have these attributes.  If you don’t include one of the access attributes, that type of limitation will not be used.

• Limit by logged status: Basic limitation is for logged users. Use ‘access_logged’ attribute set to true or false to show content for the shortcode to logged users or to visitors only.
• Limit by user role: Name of the role so that only users with that role can see the content. Use ‘access_role’ attribute and set it to the role you want to limit the content to.
• Limit by capability: Name of the capability so that only users with that capability can see the content . Use ‘access_caps’ attribute and set it to the capability you want to limit the content to.

Once you set this, some of the users or visitors will be limited to see the content. Instead of content they will get nothing, or you can set it to display a message. This message has 3 additional attributes, and it will be displayed with DIV tag: ‘access_message’, ’access_class’ and ‘access_style’.

So, here is the example of the xss_infobox shortcode in the xScape Theme Framework with the limitation active:

[xss_infobox color="red" access_logged=true access_message="Access Denied" access_class="denied"]This is the content to limit[/xss_infobox]

This will show content only to logged users, visitors will see Access Denied message, in DIV with ‘denied’ class.

Access Control with Filters

You can also control access using WordPress filters. Depending on the product and the shortcode, filter name will be different. Basic format is to have prefix that is product specific and the name of the shortcode. Prefix can be:

• for xScape Theme Framework: xss_access_shortcode_
• for GD Custom Posts and Taxonomies Tools Pro: gdcpt_access_shortcode_
• for  GD Products Center Pro: gdpc_access_shortcode_

So, for the shortcode xss_info in xScape, filter name would be: xss_access_shortcode_xss_info. Return true or false through the filter handling function to show or hide content.

Toolbar Menu Integration

To allow for more flexibility in the future, plugin now support modules architecture already in use in GD Products Center and GD Star Rating 2.0. More info on modules will follow, but for now, two internal modules are available. First one is for custom meta box integration into bbPress and second one (new feature) for integration into WordPress toolbar menu. bbPress module is not changed from previous functionality but one bug is fixed.

To set up modules, new Modules panel is available in the plugin menu. If you were using bbPress integration already, please check if your bbPress settings for the module are preserved after upgrade to 3.7.

New custom field is available, allowing you to add Google Maps. This field right now supports search by address and positioning of marker. More things will be added to the field in the future versions.

Custom Field: Google Map

All widgets are now available through functions and shortcodes (to be added to documentation soon). Few things with the widgets are improved. New gdr2 library is included and jQueryUI updated to latest 1.8.21 version. To handle Google Maps, GMAP3 library is added.

Next major version 4.0 will take some time to develop, and roadmap already has current plans for it, but that is likely to change and expand with more features. More information on this version is expected in the next couple of months. Until than, few minor revisions are expected. As always, please report any problems or bugs you find in this latest version.

Currently work is done on GD Products Center Pro, and Beta #1 of 1.1 version is released yesterday. There will be one more Beta in July, with final 1.1 scheduled for the end of the month. GD Custom Posts and Taxonomies Tools Pro will get version 3.7 in about 2 weeks. GD Simple Widgets Pro development continues with more refactoring and code cleanup for version 2.2 in August. That will prepare plugin for major re-haul in version 3.0 later this year.

GD Press Tools Pro will soon enter the long development phase that will not be done until the September/October, and it will see several Alpha and Beta revisions until final is released. There are many changes planned, and considering sensitivity of most of them, it will need longer development cycle to complete as planned.

Two planned themes will be released, one in July, and other by the end of August. More on this will follow, but one of the themes will be the successor of newsScape. xScape Theme Framework will get some small work done this summer.

GD Star Rating will be focus of development this summer. New Alpha #3 is coming next week, with one more Alpha later in July. Plans to have new website for this plugin online are somewhat delayed and I hope to finish that very soon. Planned modules and graphics packs are coming this summer parallel with plugin development. I hope to get to Beta version of the plugin in August.

GD Star Rating 2.0 is 100% new plugin, and it the only thing it shares with old plugin is name. Plugin development is right now further along that Alpha #2 shows, but this version includes features that are usable at this point, and more features will be included once the code is stabilized. Over the next month, you can expect one new Alpha version each week. When plugin reaches Beta stage, most of the planned features for 2.0 will be included. Right now, modules for bbPress and BuddyPress (they will be included with the plugin), are not done yet. bbPress module will be added in Alpha #4 in about 2 weeks, BuddyPress module should be done by the time plugin reaches Beta stage.

Rating object rendering settings

Focus on this Alpha is not to test features. Right now plugin is some 80% done, but in this version, about 50% of code is included. Rest needs more testing and will be included more and more in next versions. First thing to test is database schema. There are 6 tables created by the plugin. Plugin Tools and multi sets panels are also functional. Panels Modules and Settings are used to set up the plugin. Right now modules are not completed, but whole modules engine is fully functional.

Rating object auto insertion

Main thing in this version is Ratings panel. From here you can setup each rating object. By default, plugin includes objects: post, user, comment and free. And page and attachments as inherited objects. Two images here are parts of this editor.

Rating objects can be set through several blocks of options and rules for: display, voting, limitations and insertion. Each rule allows control of the user logged in status, roles and conditions. Handling for all this can be expanded.

GD Custom Posts and Taxonomies Tools Pro plugin supports registering custom post types as rating objects. Each post type registered through this plugin will appear on the GD Star Rating 2.0 Ratings panel.

From now on, you can expect new alpha version each Monday.

Based on the feedback from old newsScape theme and updates in the design, new newsScape II will be similar to old theme, but with few new elements, improved slider and more. Second theme is still in design stages, and I hope to have more information soon. Plan is to make both these themes as responsive, and that will take some additional time to allow something like that in the framework. There are plans for new development cycle for xScape that will soon go into work, and that will include support for upcoming GD Star Rating and few more things planned before.

For now, if you have some suggestions for newsScape II based on your experience with old one, please let me know.

Creating multi sets is similar to the old plugin. But, now we have popup dialog for convenience with drag’n'drop for the multi set elements.

Mutli Set Editor Popup

As for the plugin Tools, right now Import/Export is completed, and the Maintenance for cleanup and reset.

Maintenance Tools

Most important part is setting rating object, here is fully functional auto insert rules editor.

Rating Object Auto Insert

That’s it for now, stay tuned for more.

Each rating object has 3 rating types and 4 rating methods. Basic panel bellow shows settings for each rating type (mind some typos).

GDSR 2.0: Rating, Basic Settings

Second tab shows rules for the voting and revoting for rating type/method combinations.

GDSR 2.0: Rating, Voting Rules

That’s it for now, one more preview is coming soon, and once the admin panels are usable, public alpha will follow. Current testing is going well, and I can’t wait to share the plugin with all users soon.

So far, plugin core is ready, and the goal now is to work on the user interface for next Alpha #2 that will be released to public during this month. Once the Alpha stage is done, plugin will go to final release soon after with maybe one Beta and 2-3 release candidate versions. I can’t talk dates now, but once the Alpha #2 is released I will have precise release date for the plugin.

Current tests show that plugin needs only about 1.0 to 1.5 MB of memory (current 1.9.16 needs up to 5 MB), and it is very fast. CSS and JS files are very clean and simplified allowing great flexibility and CDN compatibility (current 1.9 branch wasn’t CDN ready due to complex CSS file). Code is modular and will allow for great expanding possibilities starting with modules that will be built in (bbPress and BuddyPress), or commercial modules later.

During this month, I plan also to build new website and to retire old one under a subdomain installation for archive purposes. New website will be dedicated to 2.0 version only. So, stay tuned for more news and soon several screenshots. Great thing now is that plugin is nearing the release and this internal testing period will provide me with valuable information to make next Alpha a public release.

One of the main objections with old plugin, was a large memory footprint. Old plugin structure was written and updated over the period of two years, with many elements added on top of other elements, and that was causing higher memory usage. Old plugin started very simple and it grew from there. This time, GDSR 2.0 is starting very differently, and it has powerful core that can be expanded for any rating purpose.

New Multiset Editor

Base of the plugin is created using gdr2 shared library that handles main plugin classes, settings and settings forms rendering. This is already proven concept from GD Products Center Pro, and all future Dev4Press plugins will use similar approach. To render on frontend, gdT3 library is used (same as for GD Products Center Pro). On top of the plugin base code, there is rating core. Core is very modular, with base classes containing most of the code. Individual rating types are extending base classes to add additional features they might require. On admin side, plugin will use between 1.0MB up to 1.5MB. On front end, this should be about the same, depending on how many rating elements are displayed on the page. That is about 4 times less than with old plugin. Plugin needs only 6 database tables to store all the data. Plugin will use meta approach to store data, and that will help to accommodate different needs for different rating types.

First Alpha version will include following rating methods: Free (you can rate anything as long as you provide unique ID), comments, users, posts and pages. But, before Alpha is released, GD Custom Posts and Taxonomies Tools Pro will have support to register rating objects for each custom post type added by the plugin. Similar support will be added to GD Products Center Pro for registered product types.

That is all at this moment, I will have more information soon. Current target date for GDSR 2.0 Alpha is March 29 2012.

Development of plugins, themes and theme framework will continue this year, and I have plans on improving Dev4Press website, and launching at least 3 new websites related to my work and WordPress. The list that follows will include dates if possible, all items in the list are listed in no particular order.

Dev4Press

1. Newsletters. First major update to website is coming in February with powerful newsletter system. I can’t give more detailes at this moment, but there is a plan to have it released as commercial plugin later this year.
2. Support Forum. There will be many improvements to support forums, starting with changes to posting topics that are coming in the next couple of weeks. More things will be introduced to improve the forums.
3. Plugins Informations. All plugins information will be updated over the next 2 months. Existing information will be improved and kept current as often as possible.

Plugins

1. GD Simple Widgets 3.0 Pro. This plugin was neglected for the last year, but that will change. Plan is to give it new gdT3 templates system library and to add at least 4 new widgets to it. I hope to get working on this new version in the next two months.
2. GD Products Center 1.0 Pro. Plugin is in the final beta phase now, and final 1.0 is expected in January. This is not even close to the end of the development for this new plugin, it will include a lot of new features that are in the roadmap.
3. GD aZon FUSION 1.0 Pro. Plugin is nearing completion, and 1.0 will be released in February or March. I am also preparing the list of features to be added after that. There are some plans in that regard already.
4. GD Star Rating 2.0. This plugin is delayed several times, but now it should be getting back on track. Public beta versions (or further) will be released by the end of March. More info on the progress on this plugin will be available next month.
5. GD Custom Posts and Taxonomies Tools 4.0 Pro. Roadmap for this plugin is pretty much planned out. Before we go to 4.0, there will be at least on major release (3.6 most likely in February).
6. GD Press Tools 5.0 Pro. Plans for this major version are not yet formulated, but it will be released in the second half of 2012. Leading to this release, plugin will get more SEO features, more content related tools and few other things. Development for 4.4 will start this week and it will add new features to modify WordPress 3.3 toolbar and other things.
7. Lite & Free Plugins. The development of all free plugins will proceed as before, Pro plugins will have priority but free plugins will not be neglected. As for the lite versions of Pro plugins, they will get regular compatibility updates as usual.

Themes

1. xScape Theme Framework 1.9/2.0. Work on the post 1.8 version will begin soon, and I will have detailed roadmap soon. Current roadmap already includes new features, and it will be expanded with few more interesting things.
2. Themes. Right now, plan is to have 5 to 8 themes released in 2012, depending on available time and available designs. I have 2 themes already planned, one is in the works. Also, all future themes will be HTML5.

Libraries

1. gdT3. This library is in development, and it is used to power GD aZon FUSION and GD Products Center rendering right now. GD Star Rating 2.0 and GD Simple Widgets 3.0 Pro will use it as well.
2. gdR2. This powerful library will be expanded further this year. Plan is to have more core functions added, to have improved loading and support for APC for caching library. All Pro plugins and xScape are using it already.

Websites

1. GD Products Center Pro, GD aZon FUSION Pro and GD Simple Widgets Pro will get own websites that will be used as demos and basic landing pages with information about each plugin and its features.
2. A website related to WordPress is in works and I expect it complete in the first half of this year. I will not give any details about the website content or plans for it, but it will be interesting.

That’s it for now, plans will change depending on the needs, but I will try to keep to the list. All suggestions for the development are welcome, and you can leave them in comments or in the forum.

I wish you all happy new year!

Development

GD Press Tools Pro has gone through a lot of changes and it is most popular plugin on Dev4Press. GD Custom Posts and Taxonomies Tools Pro has become very popular solution for working with custom content and because of that, a lot of useful features were added, including the integration with bbPress plugin. GD Products Center in the new plugin that will soon get stable 1.0 release. Only thing I regret in this year in regard to development are delays for GD Star Rating 2.0, hopefully that will be resolved soon.

As for the themes, xScape Theme Framework has gone a long way, and reached 1.8 recently. Themes are now all working as child themes to basic xScape Core theme. All the work done on that unfortunately limited number of released themes, but that number will improve next year.

Development of free plugins was great this year, and that includes one new plugin for bbPress 2.0 (GD bbPress Attachments), resurrected GD Pages Navigator, new plugin GD Unit Converter and active updates for Lite plugins.

A bit of statistics

In the past 12 months, there were 350 updates and releases available for all plugins and themes. That is almost one each day, confirming how lively and intense the development was on Dev4Press. This have generated over 250.000 downloads during 2011 with little over 300 GB of bandwidth. And most importantly, number of Pro users has increased 92% during this year.

Dev4Press website have seen 95% increase in number of visitors, 115% increase in number of page views and 135% in number of total time visitors spend on the website. Firefox was most popular browser among visitors (45%), Chrome followed (32%) with Internet Explorer and Safari (both with 8%) and Opera (4%).

Website updates

Dev4Press website have gone through many changes in both design and content in 2011. One of the most important changes was upgrade of support forums to bbPress 2.0 plugin version. New element of the website is ‘Feature of the Day’ section, ‘Documentation’ is updated and now contain over 300 functions and hooks for different products and website now uses shopping cart to make purchase of multiple products easy. Also, all prices are displayed in Euros, British Pounds and US Dollars.

Next week I will write about plans for 2012, and there are some great things in plans. For now, I am very happy with the growth Dev4Press has gone through this year, and I am very grateful to all of you for support, and I wish you all a happy new year.

Measurement Process

For this article I have tested 35 plugins. This includes both free and commercial plugins, big and small plugins and all of them are tested on the admin side and on the website frontend. All tests are done with a single installation, and WordPress 3.3 RC1 was used. Tests are done on the local server with PHP 5.3.8.

Testing exact impact of plugins on WordPress is not easy, since there are two things that happen during the loading process. First part is WordPress loading the plugin (using PHP include function). Second part is done through actions and filters added by plugin to WordPress during loading stage. First part is not to complicated to measure and that is what you have in the table below. Second part is very complicated to measure because it would need tracking of each action or filter executed. This second part is even more complex if you take into account that different actions and filters are executed only on some of the pages or panels.

All measurements are done using GD Press Tools Pro 4.3.1 plugin. Plugin has a tracker class that can be loaded from wp-config.php file to accurately capture snapshots of different loading stages (among other things). To allow capturing plugins snapshots, I made small change to WordPress core files: added snapshot call into loop that loads plugins.

Measurement Results

35 tested plugins are listed in the table below. You can see how much memory each plugin needs during loading, how many SQL queries are run and how many hooks attached to WordPress, as well as the total time needed for this loading stage. All this is done on the admin side (dashboard) and on the frontend (home page).

This data can change depending on the page used to do the testing since plugins can loading different things based on the page. But, these numbers are good reference point to see how the loading of plugins affect the WordPress. Also, you can see on average (and total) how much each plugin adds to the WordPress loading. What each row color means:

I have mentioned the second part of loading that happens after all plugins are loaded, and WordPress runs actions and filters after that. Table below shows the difference between the WordPress with 35 plugins and WordPress with no plugins. Before plugins loader results are same for clean WordPress and WordPress with plugins.

Interesting thing is that you can have all 35 plugins active, and I had some WordPress setups with more than 70 active plugins. But, be ready for the WordPress using much more resources. The more plugins you have active, the more server power is needed. Plugins will have negative impact on website speed. To fix that you must use a caching plugin (W3 Total Cache for caching pages and minify the JS and CSS files) and some sort of server based optimization (eAccelerate or similar extension for PHP).

Clean WordPress will work with 32MB set for PHP to use. You can have less, but some internal operations might need a bit more, so 32MB is safe minimal value. If you have a couple of plugins, 32MB should be enough. If you have more than 10 plugins, at least 64MB is needed. As you can see from this test, for 35 plugins I had here, you need more, and 96MB or 128MB is safe value. Some shared hosting companies will not let you have more than 64MB or 80MB, so you might have issues with many plugins if you are on some restrictive hosting companies. Consult hosting support to make sure you will get enough resources. You can use average values above to get some orientation value for memory needed.

Optimization Analysis

As you can see in the plugins table on the top, some plugins results are in different colors. Green colors are for plugins with good optimization, red colors are for plugins with bad optimization. Badly optimized plugins are always loading everything on front-end and on admin side and they take a lot of memory. Smaller plugins with less than 0.8MB of memory used are not a big problem and they usually can’t be much optimized considering number of plugin files.

Since most plugins are behaving different on admin side and front-end, they should be taking care of what will be loaded in both cases. Only files that are actually needed should be loaded. This is not always possible, but with little extra work, code can be separated to allow for better loading optimization. Considering how much memory some of the plugins use, it is essential to try and lower required resources. Most WordPress users are on shared hosting servers, and they need plugins that are optimized.

The Bad

Plugins with worst loading stats and worst optimization from this test are: bbPress, GD Star Rating, Subscribe2, The Google+ Plugin, WooCommerce and YOURLS WordPress to Twitter. bbPress should be loading parts of the plugin only when needed, considering that forum is usually separated from normal WP pages. You can have some core parts always loaded, but most things are not needed on every page. My own GD Star Rating is old plugin, and I made some optimizations in some versions, but I need to do more, and GD Star Rating 2.0 will be highly optimized to use resources. The Google+ Plugin loads many libraries that are not needed for the most part, and for a simple plugin that this should be, it uses a lot of memory. I can’t judge quality of WooCommerce plugin, but I couldn’t believe how bad loading for this plugin is, and its main file loads 32 other files always. I have noticed some other things done bad in this plugin only from first few files, but loading is really bad.

Few plugins are a bit better than this, and they have lighter red color: BackupWP, Events Manager, gdHeadSpace4, GD Products Center Pro, GD Unit Converter, GravityForms. BackupWP doesn’t need anything on front end but it still loads things always. Events Manager has some loading optimizations, but I see potential to make it much better. I have modded plugin into gdHeadSpace4 and I didn’t make changes in loading. This plugin doesn’t have big memory footprint, but some changes can be done. My GD Products Center Pro is still in beta, and I plan to finish loading optimization before releasing 1.0 version. Another of my plugin GD Unit Converter is 100% admin side plugin, yet some things are loaded always, and I will improve this soon. GravityForms requires a lot of things on both admin and front end side, but there are some things that can be optimized much better that they are now.

The Good

Contact Form 7 and WP e-Commerce could benefit from some minor changes, but they are good as far as optimization goes. Light green and good optimization is done with: Antispam Bee and BackupBuddy. BackupBuddy would benefit greatly with better main loader file that is now too big. With fragmentation of this file, will help with optimization further.

Best optimized plugins, considering plugin size and features are: GD Affiliate Center Pro, GD Press Tools Pro, GD Custom Posts And Taxonomies Tools Pro, W3 Total Cache, WordPress Download Monitor, WordPress SEO. My 3 Pro plugins all have advanced loaders and modular structure to load things need for admin side or front end. Even the code used for Ajax or saving data is separated and loaded only when needed. W3TC does a great job in loading of different plugin modules and same goes for WordPress SEO by Yoast has loader that loads different files on both sides, minimizing the impact on WordPress.

My GD Press Tools Pro and GD Custom Posts And Taxonomies Tools Pro can replace great many other plugins, and that alone can save you a lot of resources. If you can have 10 plugins and if each one uses 1.3MB on average, that is 13MB, you can replace with GD Press Tools Pro only (and it can replace much more than just 10, maybe 60 or more plugins), that will use only 2.9MB.

Loading used in my plugins

Process of loading for my GD Press Tools Pro plugin is controlled by main plugin file. First, it loads parts of gdr2 shared library (used by all my plugins). Public functions and classes are loaded next (they are used on both admin and front end side). Some parts of internal code are loaded next. Main plugin class is loaded after that, and this class is used to initialize the plugin and load plugin settings. Than, loader checks if its loaded on admin side. If it is, admin core class is loaded as well as some extra functions. And if the plugin is loaded to save settings or through AJAX call, it loads separate settings saving or AJAX classes. This all improves loading on front end side by some 30%. This loading method is changed over time, and I think that it works great right now.

Two plugins I ALWAYS use

I can’t imagine running WordPress website without my GD Press Tools Pro. It is truly ultimate administration plugin, and it does so many things that you simply need on any website: backup, sitemaps, SEO, optimization and integration… Second plugin is W3 Total Cache. Page caching, external files minify and support for CDN are something each website should use to improve website speed.

Cached Pages

If you use W3 Total Cache or some other similar caching plugin, and you have page cache enabled, it is important to know that when cached page is served to a visitor, WordPress (and plugins) are not loaded at all. All these tests are made when there is no page caching active.

Conclusion

As you can see, plugins can have big impact on WordPress. While you can have as many plugins as you like, there are things to consider:

• Compatibility: the more plugins you have, there is more chance to have some of them causing problems. Always test plugins when adding new plugin, it is rare, but it can happen. I always have local copies of all my websites, and when new things are added, I always test locally before moving to live server.
• Resources: the more plugins you have, the more server resources will be used. If you are on the shared hosting, I recommend that you review if you really need all plugins you might have already. Test different plugins you can use, because with too many of them active, you can easily hit the limits imposed by your hosting company. My GD Press Tools Pro can do many things, one of them is to measure data like this, and you can see exact impact of a new plugin added on memory, mySQL server or WordPress.
• Loading Speed: more plugins == less speed. It is very important to use cache plugins to optimize front end loading, to minify external files and use CDN to load external resources.

I hope that other plugin developers will consider the results from this article, and my recommendations to improve loading for own plugins to optimize them so that end users get faster plugins that are not needing too much resources. Lets make plugins even better.

My other projects are gaining in popularity, and I need to spend more time working on other plugins, so GDSR 2.0 got much less development time than I hopped for. I am very, very busy and you can see from latest releases on Dev4Press that my time has gone into different plugins, putting GDSR 2.0 on the back burner. Good thing is that development is progressing, even if it slower than it should be.

I have outlined my time for the first 6 months in the next year, and plans for GDSR 2.0 is to be ready in the first quarter of 2012. In the next 2 weeks I will have plans published on the website, and they include xScape Theme Framework development, work on all current plugins, completion of current Beta plugins, at least one more major versions for GD Press Tools Pro and GD Custom Posts and Taxonomies Tools, major rewrite of GD Simple Widgets Pro and of course, GDSR 2.0.

Dev4Press website currently uses 20 plugins. From that number, 7 plugins are Dev4Press made plugins, one is modded HeadSpace plugin, and 12 plugins are from different developers. Considering the number of features used on Dev4Press, this is very low number of plugins, mostly thanks to GD Press Tools Pro and GD Custom Posts and Taxonomies Tools Pro that can replace so many individual plugins. But, lets see all the plugins used in alphabetical order:

1. After The Deadline - www.afterthedeadline.com
   WordPress basic spell-checker that is part of editor is replaced by this, much powerful plugin. It has many options that are set per user and include contextual spell-checking, grammar checking and style checking. A must use plugin for any website that deals with a lot of text.
2. Antispam Bee - antispambee.com
   Couple of weeks back I have written about replacing Akismet with Antispam Bee. After a while, Antispam Bee has proven as a great replacement and permanent addition to my websites. It is very effective in eliminating spam, easy to setup and it takes much less resources than Akismet.
3. bbPress – bbpress.org
   This is the only forum plugin that truly integrates into WordPress and uses post types to implements forums, topics and replies. And it is one of many plugins directly integrated with my xScape Theme Framework. This is not as complex forum as they can be, but it is lightweight with great potential to expand. If you need extra fields in the topic and replies forms, you can use my  GD Custom Posts And Taxonomies Tools Pro to expand it.
   

   dev4Press Control - Uploader

4. Dev4Press Control – www.dev4press.com
   This is not plugin you will be able to get and use. It is written for Dev4Press website and it adds management for Pro users, purchases, downloads, newsletters and integration with the theme to provide user experience you see on Dev4Press.
5. Dev4Press Updater – www.dev4press.com
   Users of Dev4Press Pro plugins and themes know about this plugin. With this plugin you can install and update all Dev4Press plugins very simply, similar to WordPress repository plugins updates. It is compatible with ManageWP service.
6. GD Affiliate Center Pro – www.dev4press.com/gd-affiliate-center
   Visitors on Dev4Press see few affiliate banners in the sidebar. They are managed with this plugin. It is a powerful affiliate and ads management plugin, and it seamlessly integrates with xScape Theme Framework to provide with simple way of adding ads into your website. It supports banners, text links or any custom ad code like one used for GoogleAds.
7. GD bbPress Attachments – www.dev4press.com/gd-bbpress-attachments
   There are many things you might miss if you use bbPress compared to other full forum solutions. With this plugin, you will get the attachments implemented. You can set up many things with this plugin, and all uploads are handled natively by the WordPress media library.
8. GD Custom Posts And Taxonomies Tools Pro – www.dev4press.com/gd-taxonomies-tools
   Dev4Press uses 7 custom post types (documentation, features of the day, plugins, themes…) and 4 custom taxonomies. But, that is not all, with this plugin I have 8 custom meta boxes for different post types, use of widgets and many more things that are implemented through this plugin (custom rewrite rules, improved content management, theme integration functions…).
9. gdHeadSpace4 – www.dev4press.com/gdheadspace4
   I have modded the HeadSpace2 plugin to fix the issues with custom post types and custom taxonomies. I plan to replace this plugin with GD Press Tools Pro soon, but for now, this is a great SEO solution.
   

   GD Press Tools Pro - Partial Stats

10. GD Press Tools Pro – www.dev4press.com/gd-press-tools
    With this one plugin you can replace hundreds of other plugins (depending on what you need). From enhanced administration, backup, auto tagging, security, maintenance, SEO, debugging and many more things, I can’t even imagine running a website without it. It has full support for WordPress multisite/network mode.
11. GD Star Rating – www.gdstarrating.com
    One more of my plugins, here is used for posts and comments ratings. It is fully integrated with my xScape Theme Framework themes, and it can be used with any theme. I know that development of GD Star Rating 2.0 has been much slower than I wanted, but new version is coming along.
12. Gravity Forms – www.gravityforms.com
    This is one of the best plugins ever made for WordPress. If you need to add even a simplest form to your website, look no further. It is commercial plugin, but no free plugin comes even close to Gravity Forms. I have written a review of this plugin, and you can check it out here.
13. Lightbox Plus – www.23systems.net/lightbox-plus
    In my opinion best implementation for lightbox like image display jQuery plugin (implements Colorbox). It is very easy to set up and use, and it behaves very unobtrusive. It has many different lightbox display styles that can fit with any website theme design.
14. Regenerate Thumbnails – www.viper007bond.com/regenerate-thumbnails
    Simple and very useful plugin that makes resizing images into thumbnails very easy in case you add or change thumbnails sizes or other custom image sizes. You can read my review of this plugin here.
15. Subscribe to Comments Reloaded – wordpress.org/subscribe-to-comments-reloaded
    Also another must have plugin. It will add very important subscribe feature for your users and visitors to get information about comment replies, making discussion in posts easy and more engaged. It is massively improved over original Subscribe to Comments plugin, and it is powerful to set up and use. It can be integrated with any theme (with a bit of template modifications).
16. SyntaxHighlighter Evolved – www.viper007bond.com/syntaxhighlighter
    If you have a need to display source code in your posts, look no further. This is the only plugin you will need, and from my experience, the only one that actually works as expected. It supports color styling and wide range of programing languages.
17. TinyMCE Advanced – www.laptoptips.ca/tinymce-advanced
    Many of the standard features of the TinyMCE editor that is built into WordPress are disabled by default. This includes controls for tables and other things. With this plugin, using drag and drop interface you can rearrange all buttons on the editor toolbars, add extra toolbars and many more new controls.
18. VideoJS – videojs.com
    Some of the videos for premium tutorials are hosted on Dev4Press, and this plugin is used to embed those videos into posts. Very simple and easy to use, supports HTML5 videos.
19. W3 Total Cache – www.w3-edge.com/w3-total-cache
    You can’t say anything new about this plugin. It is a absolute must have for any website, it will make integration with CDN easy, it can minify and cache content. As long as you don’t use object and database caching, this plugin will improve your website speed, and free a lot of server resources.
20. YOURLS: WordPress to Twitter – yourls.org
    I am using YOURS for my own domain to set up URL shortening (d4p.me). And this system can be used directly through WordPress with this plugin. GD Custom Posts And Taxonomies Tools Pro can integrate with this plugin, and I have also contributed some improvements and fixes to it.

Thanks to my own plugins, I only use 20 plugins for a very complex website like Dev4Press. How many plugins you use (active, not only installed) on your website?

My current development time is mainly occupied by new Pro plugin called GD Products Center. This plugin should be completed in about 10-15 days (well, stable 1.0.0, more features will be added later). As soon as that is done, I am resuming work on GD Star Rating 2.0. In the same time, I will work on a new theme, that will be rating oriented and that theme will be used to develop GD Star Rating 2.0 front end integration and testing. So, from October 24 2011, most of my development time will be dedicated to GD Star Rating 2.0.

If everything goes OK, first public Alpha version will be ready in about 3 weeks, and that is second half of November. Another 2-3 weeks after I will need to finish all planned features, and go into Beta versions release. My current plan is to have GD Star Rating 2.0 Stable out before the end of this year.

As announced before, plugin will remain free, but I will not provide any support for free (with exception of several show/intro videos nd basic documentation). Premium support available right now, will continue to function for new plugin also. Also, as announced before, there are several expansion packages planned: icons sets and other useful extras. And premium support users will get that for free. But, down the road, I plan to offer rating packages that will include premium support, one or more xScape themes and training. Pricing for all that is not yet available.

With all this said, this is not set in stone. I will do my best to keep with the schedule this time, and to release next generation of the best rating plugin for WordPress. Thanks for all the patience and support from plugin users, I hope you will like the new plugin.

Still, I will not be able to work full time on the plugin, so it will be a while until is ready, but I expect that beta testing can start in the next 2 months.

Plugin will remain free. Support on the other hand will remain only Premium. Existing premium users will get premium support for new GDSR2

Here are some quick facts about the new plugin:

Requirements:

• It will require PHP5. Plugin will use new object model that is not even compatible with PHP4. The fact that WordPress is also switching to PHP5 only is a good sign.
• It will require mySQL5. Previous version had a lot of redundand code made so that plugin can work on mySQL 3/4, but that prove to be hard to maintain. So, only new mySQL from now on.
• It will require WordPress3. Maintaining any plugin to work with old WP versions is hard, and with plugin as complex as GDSR2 it will be extremely hard.
• It will work with BuddyPress. Yes, GDSR2 will fully support WordPress multisite/network mode and all additional features from BuddyPress.

Compatibility:

• Plugin will not be compatible with current GD Star Rating 1.x versions. New plugin is now written from zero, and nothing (and I mean really nothing) from old plugin will be used in the new one.
• Database structure is different from GD Star Rating 1.x. But, there will be a convert tool in the GDSR2 to import old data into the new structures. You will not loose already existing data.
• Most of the old functions will be gone. But, there will be a legacy package with the code to add old functions that will work with new code that will require minimal changes to your own code.
• Templates from T2 system are gone. New gdT3 templates system will be used (already used in GD aZon FUSION), that will store templates on disc not in database. Old templates can’t be reused here.
• Star/thumb sets are not the same as old ones. To make everything work faster, only one image per set is used (6 with old sets). New sets will allow adding new sizes beyond default 8 sizes.

(Some) New Features:

• Base rating classes will implement all sorts of functionalities for all 4 types of ratings: single star block, multi star block, single thumbs block, multi thumbs block (new one!). Code will be modular and split into several files so that plugin can load only what’s needed.
• From base rating classes, plugin will add new specific rating classes for: posts, pages, custom post types, comments, users, links, images/videos/attachments… Base classes will be used to add new rating objects.
• Some rating classes (like users), in WP Network mode will be global and will be controlled by network administrators. Same goes for some BuddyPress specific rating classes.
• Very lightweight CSS and JavaScript for rating blocks. This is already done months ago, and new CSS is only 20% of the old one. JavaScript is 50% smaller than one used in current GD Star Rating 1.x.
• Users will be able to change their votes.

And much more. This is just a glimpse in what’s to come with new GDSR2. Development process will be followed closely on Dev4Press, and you can expect weekly reports on what’s going on with the new plugin.

This is stability mainly release, with some functions changes and several minor fixes and changes. Plugin is tested on WordPress 2.7, 2.8, 2.9 and it works fine on all 3 versions. Over the next 2 months or so, I plan to release 2-3 bug fixing and stability releases. But, the development focus is on GD Star Rating 2.0 that is planned for end of April 2010. Progress on that will follow.

More details on the official website:

GD Star Rating 1.8.0 MMX: http://dv4p.com/i5

To download plugin, you can do so from the plugins page or free downloads page.

Plugin Page: http://www.dev4press.com/plugins/gd-star-rating/
Free Download: http://www.dev4press.com/free-downloads/

But, before you go on, here is the reminder of previous posts:

• Test environment setup [ read more ]
• Results from administration tests [ read more ]
• Results from testing blog pages [ read more ]

Administration memory usage

Administration

First batch of tests will focus on WP administration pages. I used the same setup for these tests, and comparison between two versions of WP are on this first chart. As you can see, dashboard page now uses some 5MB less memory in both clean version and with all plugins active. Main reason for this is because feeds are now loading data through AJAX only if they are needed.

Pages are now prepared by PHP much faster, and this is noticeable on, more or less, all administration pages. Generated pages sizes are mostly the same size as with WP 2.8, with few exceptions where the generated page is much smaller, like with the dashboard, because feeds are now not a part of the page. Same speedup is visible on general settings page, and now time zone settings are loading very fast.

As you can see not all pages show memory decreasing, but that is to be expected, not all parts of WP 2.8 were problem, only some of the pages needed to be fixed. But as I said, many of the improvements are visible all over the administration. For the past few days I have been using 2.8.1 on my blogs, and I am very pleased with latest changes.

It’s important to mention, that this time I had no problems with auto upgrade as I had with updating from 2.7.1 to 2.8, so that’s also a big plus for 2.8.1

Blog Pages

The other part of the test is testing of actual blog pages. Again, many things depend on the theme you use and on the loading optimizations theme might (or not) use. As I said before, very few themes right now are improved in that direction. So, I decided for this WP 2.8 against WP 2.8.1 tests to focus on default theme and number of queries executed.

Number of queries on blog pages

As for the other tests like size of the page and used memory, there is almost no difference between two versions. But, as I said in first post on the subject, WP 2.8 is already excellent as the blog pages goes.

But in most cases, WP 2.8.1 needs less queries then WP 2.8. I am not sure exactly what is done to cause this improvement, and I really don’t care, as long as WP 2.8.1 is better. And less queries it takes, means that less resources will WP use, and server will be able to serve content to more visitors in the same time.

Last week I have published similar tests for WP 2.8 and my GD Star Rating plugin, and you can see in that post how much SQL queries will that plugin add to the blog. Tests are done to show the value of cache and prefetch methods I developed into the plugin to minimize the queries.

Conclusion

Now that we have WP 2.8.1 released, there is no more reasons for you to wait with upgrading your blog(s). WP 2.8.x uses more resources then previous versions, but that is, in my opinion, good trade off for much better interface, much easier to use panels for posts and comments, better dashboard, better user interaction and most important faster blog pages that your visitors see. If WP 2.8 was problematic in terms of using too much memory, WP 2.8.1 solved all that problems and even improved in some areas. Overall, this is the best release of WP yet, and a good sign that next versions will be, as expected, even better.

I hope that I will be able to complete (soon) testing of JavaScript performance and testing of some of the plugins to complete the series of benchmark posts trying to give you a better look at WP performance.

All tests will be between WP 2.6.5, WP 2.7.1 and WP 2.8. Once WP 2.8.1 is released I will compare it to WP 2.8. Tests will be done on administration pages and on blog itself. First round of tests will test server side and how different factors affect each of the tested WP versions. After that I will try to determine how the browsers render different pages for different WordPress versions.

Here is the preliminary list of posts I plan to write:

• WP Benchmark: Administration [ read more ]
• WP Benchmark: Blog [ read more ]
• WP Benchmark: 2.8.1 [ read more ]
• WP Benchmark: GD Star Rating #1 [ read more ]
• WP Benchmark: GD Star Rating #2 [ read more ]

• WP Benchmark: Plugins #1 [ to be published: soon ]
• WP Benchmark: Plugins #2 [ to be published: soon ]

• WP Benchmark: JavaScript [ to be published: soon ]

Setup for all the tests is described in this post:

• WP Benchmark: Setup [ read more ]

When I publish the post, I will update this list and add the URL. GD Star Rating tests will be published on plugin’s official website. If you have any more suggestions, leave the comment.