[Phpgroupware-developers] New stuff (performance improvements)

[Dan Kuykendall (Seek3r)]

I spent the last week and a half running thru and doing what I could to
help phpGroupWare performance as well as clean up other minor things
that bugged me.
Here are the highlights:

1) Major improvements in out image finding functions, which have cut
down on disk reads by about 90%, and thus noticibly improving
performance on my installs. I have also added an image_on() function
that should aid developers in handling hover images and such.

2) Added PHP4 sessions class. This class simply uses PHP4's build in
session support instead of dumping it in the database. PHP4's session
support is a bit faster because it handles the encoding of the arrays
itself and since it doesnt bloat the db, the db itself stays cleaner and
performs better.

3) I have completed the hooks class and switched all the apps I have on
my install to use it. The hooks class doesnt go looping thru the
directory tree seaching for hook files, and thereby being a performance
hog. Instead it requires that apps register the hooks they include and
it only looks for the specific hooks that are claimed by apps. I have
left in the old hook() function, but it will echo a message telling
developers to switch to the new hooks class.

4) I have cleaned up idsociety a bit more, and have started work on
justweb. I have already figured out how to get the data for the dynamic
preferences submenu in the navbar and plan on making justweb work in
netscape properly.

Damn it feels good to be back!
I have been absent from phpGW hacking for so long that this has been an
absolute blast to get this stuff done. I have lots to do with the ACL
and justweb changes as well as 500 other things I have in my head. But
now that I am hacking phpGW again the list will only start getting
smaller and then grow larger as I see more things to do ;-p

Im very interested in some performance tests anyone has time to do. Even
just trying to visually see if it seems faster would help.

Seek3r