CSS question...or disappointment

[sadams101]

I think you mentioned that you'd do this at least 3 years ago...which is, again, why @Adlago and myself have had to start this process ourselves.

[Ehren]

On 10/20/2022 at 4:50 AM, sadams101 said:

I think you mentioned that you'd do this at least 3 years ago...which is, again, why @Adlago and myself have had to start this process ourselves.

I can happily back up Matt's last post. We've heard your feedback and are aiming to significantly improve both the CSS and JS performance in a future update - but as you can imagine, rewriting 10 years of code is a very long process that needs to be planned carefully.

[Afrodude]

1 hour ago, Ehren said:

I can happily back up Matt's last post. We've heard your feedback and are aiming to significantly improve both the CSS and JS performance in a future update - but as you can imagine, rewriting 10 years of code is a very long process that needs to be planned carefully.

You're kidding right? because you can simply do it with one button "Del", and then you don't have to rewrite anything. Issues is fixed. 

[Randy Calvert]

15 minutes ago, Afrodude said:

You're kidding right? because you can simply do it with one button "Del", and then you don't have to rewrite anything. Issues is fixed. 

I suppose it's possible to just delete all the stylesheets... but it will mean we all have websites that looks like it is from 1990.   On the positive side, it should indeed help the page to load super fast!

Those were some good times though... Wilson Phillips' Hold On was the most popular song of the year.  

 

[TDBF]

On 10/17/2022 at 7:12 PM, sadams101 said:

I also focus on good content. Content does not fall under the purview of IPB's software engineers, which is who this thread is addressed to. This thread is focused on IPB taking away the ability to easily modify the CSS files, which in turn makes it very difficult for those who do actually care about site speed to be able to do anything to address it.

Altering CSS styles isn't going to increase your website speed, not to the point where it actually matters or is noticeable.

I tend to find metric sites like the ones mentioned do nothing more than send you down a massive rabbit hole. You get to the point where you become obsessed with getting the prefect score and nothing else matters.

I find the score they are asking you to hit is ludicrous, especially when Google doesn't even follow their own standards. Google Ads is the biggest offender to my so-called 'perfect score'.

What will increase your speed is proper optimizations. These are generally more associated with bad PHP coding, slow database queries, poor caching methods, element blocking and lots of hooks and applications.

Does your server have enough resources such as CPU, Memory etc, and is it configured correctly and optimized? Have you dealt with bad bots, script kiddies and scrappers who are hitting your server, sucking up more resources further sucking up your resources!

A lot of people tend to throw everything and the kitchen sink on their front page, and wonder why it is slow compared to other websites.

Trust me, CSS styles are at the bottom of my list when it comes to optimization. If you honestly think that using margin: 5px 10px; over margin: 5px 10px 5px 10px is going to make any difference to your FTTB, then you have gone down that rabbit hole, my friend.

As I've always said, when Google give a crap about their own coding standards, I will give a crap about mine's, especially when it comes to their metric scores.

While I don't agree with this decision, I do understand it, as there is no need to edit the core CSS styles when you can just override via the custom file.

[sadams101]

I happen to be running a dedicated server with all hardware that is 6 years old and no CDN, but I did spend time optimizing it as well.

Currently my site & server, which also serves a ton of ad banners throughout my content, still outperforms probably 90% of IPB sites of similar size, and even those on CDN's without any ads.

I would estimate that my current speed scores (~71 on mobile, and ~90 on desktop) are 75% the result of CSS and template changes (that unfortunately can't be done using only the custom CSS feature), and 25% the result of server optimization.

I don't believe I've gone down any rabbit hole, I've simply paid attention to Google's own posts about how they rank sites, and have done my best to conform my site to their site speed tools, which are developed to help sites improve their site speed (and this is simply another objective way for Google to measure a site's quality). Anyone can ignore Google's own posts on this topic at their own peril.

The biggest speed issue with the current IPB is clearly on the mobile side, and many of the issues as to why have already been discussed in this topic. Rather than having everyone who runs IPB software and also cares about site speed scores have to "go down a rabbit hole" to improve their site speed, I personally think IPB should just do this and then use it as a marketing bullet point.

Updating the CSS and JS won't be easy, but the upside for all IPB users could be huge, as Google will weigh site speed as a ranking factor more and more as time goes by. Focusing on good SEO, including site speed, eliminating css/html/js errors, should definitely be the focus of any good Internet application.

Edited November 22, 2022 by sadams101

[Dll]

All sounds great, except you do miss a couple of pretty important points.

1. If a site passes the core web vitals test, that's the limit of potential ranking improvements as far as Google is concerned. So, if you really do have a faster site in terms of your scores than other Invision sites, since a stock build on reasonable hosting will also pass those tests, you've no advantage.

2. A higher score on one of those speed tests may only equate to <100ms of real world difference to a user. Which they won't notice. 

So, on that basis, is it worth the time, effort and/or cost, or would spending that on things that do make a real difference be better? It's up to you to decide if course, but I know what I'd rather do. 

And in the meantime, Invision can continue to modernise the platform and tidy up the js and CSS as they've said they will.

[sadams101]

Why are you even in this thread? You obviously don't care about your site speed scores, or optimizing your site to be faster. If pass/fail is good enough for you, fine.

How would it hurt you if IPB optimized their software and made it faster? It could only help your site, right...I mean it could not hurt it...could it?

[Adlago]

2 hours ago, Dll said:

1. If a site passes the core web vitals test, that's the limit of potential ranking improvements as far as Google is concerned. So, if you really do have a faster site in terms of your scores than other Invision sites, since a stock build on reasonable hosting will also pass those tests, you've no advantage.

You are only speaking with conjecture - could you support this statement of yours with an example please. Thanks.

2 hours ago, Dll said:

2. A higher score on one of those speed tests may only equate to <100ms of real world difference to a user. Which they won't notice. 

This is not true at all and is not worth commenting on…

[Dll]

9 minutes ago, Adlago said:

You are only speaking with conjecture - could you support this statement of yours with an example please. Thanks.

2 hours ago, Dll said:

https://www.searchenginejournal.com/ranking-factors/core-web-vitals/#close

Quote

John Mueller, Google Search Advocate, confirmed during the AMA that while web vitals affect rankings, relevance also plays a strong role. If website A is faster than website B but B is more relevant to the search users query, website B would still outrank A.

Mueller also noted that websites moving from “needs improvement” to “good” may see ranking improvements. But websites that are already good and improve their speed a millisecond or two may not see ranking changes.

 

9 minutes ago, sadams101 said:

Why are you even in this thread? You obviously don't care about your site speed scores, or optimizing your site to be faster. If pass/fail is good enough for you, fine.

How would it hurt you if IPB optimized their software and made it faster? It could only help your site, right...I mean it could not hurt it...could it?

I didn't say it would hurt, and it won't hurt. But, if there are only so many hours in the day for you, as someone running a site, I'd imagine you'd prefer to be doing something which moves the dial for your users, traffic and so on. And in my opinion, that doesn't involve messing about with css and the like to shave a few ms here and there and get better test scores. 

Edited November 22, 2022 by Dll

[sadams101]

For the record, I've shaved ~2 seconds per page load, not milliseconds, and as I've done this google has rewarded my rankings.

If you're happy with a ~30-40% score on google Web speed tests, then I'm not really sure why you're posting in this thread, as it's clearly for those who are seeking better.

[My Sharona]

1 hour ago, sadams101 said:

I'm not really sure why you're posting in this thread, as it's clearly for those who are seeking better.

Second time I've seen you post this.

Might just be me but I don't want to exclude any opinions. The discussion here is robust because everyone is allowed to give their perspective. Just because you don't agree is no reason to shut down the opposing side.

Edited November 23, 2022 by My Sharona

[SeNioR-]

On 10/21/2022 at 4:43 AM, Ehren said:

I can happily back up Matt's last post. We've heard your feedback and are aiming to significantly improve both the CSS and JS performance in a future update - but as you can imagine, rewriting 10 years of code is a very long process that needs to be planned carefully.

Thanks for the info, however in what "future update" we can expect these improvement? IPS 5.x or maybe a bit earlier?

Edited November 24, 2022 by SeNioR-

[Ehren]

1 hour ago, SeNioR- said:

Thanks for the info, however in what "future update" we can expect these improvement? IPS 5.x or maybe a bit earlier?

My current understanding is that some minor improvements will be added to the 4.x series (such as an upcoming Gallery refresh), however the new/modern CSS framework will be part of a much larger "version 5" update at some point in the future. I have no ETA's or anything beyond that at the moment. 🙂

[Matt]

As per Ehren, we're exploring ways to make efficiency savings in the 4.x series, but any large framework changes will need to be in 5.x given the scale, scope and destructiveness of those changes.

[Afrodude]

That would take about another two years, so the ETA's could be around 2025 to see 5.x. Cannot wait to see that upcoming changes. 

[Matt]

6 minutes ago, Afrodude said:

That would take about another two years, so the ETA's could be around 2025 to see 5.x. Cannot wait to see that upcoming changes. 

We're not Xenforo. It'll be quicker than that.

[SeNioR-]

XenForo Developers right now:

[The Old Man]

Is it just me or has performance (loading speed) of this site been troublesome this week in the UK?

I have a fibre broadband connection, and all week I have been experiencing error messages about no response, infinity loading spinners, images not loading properly in lightbox with only 5% of the image showing unless I double click on them to open in a new tab etc.

I'm talking different devices and browsers and various times of day and night.

e.g. 11 seconds waiting for the page to appear just now clicking on this topic's title

Edited November 24, 2022 by The Old Man

[Dll]

No problems for me, and I'm in the UK.

[The Old Man]

Stupid Sky Broadband! 🤢

[Dll]

2 hours ago, The Old Man said:

Stupid Sky Broadband! 🤢

You'll laugh, but I'm on Sky too. Maybe it's your wifi!

[Adlago]

On 11/24/2022 at 11:31 AM, Matt said:

As per Ehren, we're exploring ways to make efficiency savings in the 4.x series, but any large framework changes will need to be in 5.x given the scale, scope and destructiveness of those changes.

Since the CSS is unavailable for quick experiments, in the last month I have been looking for other solutions to speed up site loading. Especially on mobile…
I split the Include JS template into two parts, used a preload for some resources, etc. subtle changes... and crash-free with good server responses.
This is my maximum for now...
There are more thoughts in my head - and strange for you - without me touching the CSS... ha ha ha...

[Matt]

So CSS wasn't the speed issue?

[rfcontreras]

On 7/13/2022 at 5:16 AM, Matt said:

I think we need to be careful when using terms like "proper" as a yardstick to compare us against. I would consider that Google is an authority on what it considers a proper, or acceptable page speed, and our core web vitals pass. I would consider that we do deliver a proper page speed.

What you are asking for is advanced tools to shift an acceptable or proper speed into a very fast speed, way above what is required for ranking purposes.

You still have designer's mode if you want to tear down our CSS and rebuild it yourself. It's just not a task that 99.9% of our customers are going to do.

We have said multiple times that rebuilding our CSS is on our engineering list but software development is hard. We have a finite team with finite time with a long list of things to do. We need to balance maintenance with developing new features and re-engineering old parts of the framework. We have feature lists and back logs and a forum full of clients who ask for new features they need. This is a sign of a healthy software product. It'd be awful if no one cared enough to tell us what they need. But I would ask you to consider the needs of all our clients who express themselves here, then plan out roughly how long each thing would take and then consider what is essential today, tomorrow or in the future. Rebuilding our CSS and JS frameworks is easily a 6-9 month project that will disrupt all themes, plugins, apps and so on.  It means that we need to have a subset of our development team out of action. I would say that we should really focus that energy on getting gallery, calendar, commerce and incrementally Pages improved first.

Hiring Adlago to rebuild the CSS perhaps is a way to go.. IMHO.