Performance Options

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Performance Options

From the Site Administration Dashboard, expand Site Properties/Settings from the left panel and click Performance Settings to view this dialog. See Performance Settings for more information.

Before defining how to handle Page Index/Custom Element cache files, you must first understand a few publishing concepts. The dialog describes four main concepts:

Authoring Performance (page edits) - The perceived performance when editing a page - or more distinctly, the amount of time it takes for the published page to return after the 'Submit' button is clicked in the 'Publish Changes' dialog.
Authoring Performance (all other changes) - The perceived performance when adding, deleting, moving, or renaming a page. This consists of the amount of time it takes for a new page to appear or a delete/rename dialog to close after clicking on 'Submit'.
Read Mode Performance - The amount of time it takes to render a page for the first time with no page/Element-level cache available. To your end users, this is the most critical action they will undertake
Page Index Accuracy - The accuracy of the site's Page Index and Custom Element level cache. Basically, the only way a Page Index/Custom Element may be affected differently between Options 2 and 3 and Options 1 and 4 are those Page Indexes/Custom Elements which are filtered (not sorted) by date content last modified. In that case, a document that is edited (not created) may not appear in the correct position in those types of Page Indexes.

Performance Options

Below is a list of the options and how each of them will behave when certain content edits take place.

Option 1 - With this option set you will have the best 'Authoring' experience (the perceived time for publishing changes on an authoring server will be the fastest) however, you will have the worst 'Read Mode' experience (all pages that include Page Indexes or Custom Elements will take longer to load since the Element level cache file will need to be built). CommonSpot will do the following for each type of content change:
Content Edits (when a page which is already published is modified) - Clear All of the Page Index and Custom Element level cache files on the entire site
Content Edits (when a page is created, deleted, renamed, copied etc.) - Clear All of the Page Index and Custom Element cache files on the entire site

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Option 2 - With this option set, you have a mixed 'Authoring' experience. While Content Edits to existing pages will not take that long, all other edits will take longer to execute. The 'Read Mode' experience should be acceptable, as CommonSpot will not clear all of the Page Index and Custom Element cache files all of the time, so pages will remain cached for longer. When this option is selected CommonSpot will do the following for each type of content change:
Content Edits (when a page which is already published is modified) - Clear only the Page Index and Custom Element cache files in which this page is known to appear.
Content Edits (when a page is created, deleted, renamed, copied etc.) - Run all of the 'Unique Page Index Queries' (discussed below) to determine which Page Index and/or Custom Element caches need to be cleared.

Option 3 - With this option you have a good 'Authoring' experience, as neither page edits nor other content changes take a long time to execute. The 'Read Mode' experience will be slightly worse than in Option 2 depending on how many content changes other than existing page edits are performed on your site on a regular basis. When this option is checked, CommonSpot will do the following for each type of content change:

Content Edits (when a page which is already published is modified) - Clear only the Page Index and Custom Element cache files in which this page is known to appear.
Content Edits (when a page is created, deleted, renamed, copied etc.) - Clear All of the Page Index and Custom Element cache files on the entire site

Option 4 - With this option you will see the worst 'Authoring' experience as each content edit will take longer to execute as all Page Index and Custom Element queries are run. However, the option will give you the best performance in 'Read Mode', as Page Index and Custom Element cache clears are minimized. When this option is checked CommonSpot will do the following for each type of content change:

Content Edits (when a page which is already published is modified) - Run all of the 'Unique Page Index Queries' (discussed below) to determine which Page Index and Custom Element caches need to be cleared.
Content Edits (when a page is created, deleted, renamed, copied etc.) - Run all of the 'Unique Page Index Queries' (discussed below) to determine which Page Index and Custom Element caches need to be cleared.

Number of "Unique Page Index Queries"

In the text at the top of the dialog a number represents your site's "Unique Page Index Queries".

As shown in the example above, CommonSpot evaluates each Page Index and Custom Element on an individual basis when publishing the page that contains the Page Index or Custom Element. Each Page Index or Custom Element query (Criteria) is stored and referenced with unique IDs. CommonSpot uses the queries to determine which Page Index or Custom Element is affected by content changes as stated in the above options.

Average Author-mode Page Load Time

This number is an estimate of how long a page takes to load in Author mode. The number is used by CommonSpot when a change is published for a page, and can be tweaked to create optimum author performance. If you edit the value in this field or change the desired Performance Option, be sure to click 'OK' to save your changes.

The page publish process is separated in two parts - the "essential" and "non-essential" page processing logic.

Clicking Submit for any of the Publish Change dialogs displays a small window in front of the main window. The small window begins the "essential" processing. At this time, the current page is "busy" and not available for update. Once the "essential" processes complete, the small window directs focus towards the main window, the modified page is re-rendered with current data, and the page-level cache is built.

The small window remains hidden and will "pause" while the page is loading, to yield processing power to the page render process. Pause duration is equal to the number entered in the Average Author-mode Page Load Time field, which you can modify. Once this limit expires, the "non-essential" (Verity indexing, Pasge Index/Custom Element cache clears etc.) processes execute in the background.

Clear Page Index Cache

In the unlikely event that the Page Index or Custom Elements appear to be out of sync on your site, you can delete all of the Page Index and Custom Element cache files by clicking the Clear Page Index Cache File button on this Performance tab.

Note: Clicking this button will temporarily degrade your Read Mode performance while CommonSpot is rebuilding the cache. If possible, you should schedule cache clearing on off-hours CommonSpot will also rebuild the page index cache on the first visit to the page.

Related Links

You can download PDF versions of the Content Contributor's, Administrator's, and Elements Reference documents from the support section of paperthin.com (requires login).

The following guides are available locally on your CommonSpot Server:

You can also download these other guides from the support section of paperthin.com (with login):

For technical support:

http://www.paperthin.com/support/