Upgrading TAZ to XF 2.1

[CarpCharacin]

Are the post ratings going to be imported into reactions?

 

[Noble]

Looking good fellas nice job.

 

[R0binHood]

We have setup additional hardware, and is performing even better on 2.1

What's the server setup specs in the end?

Feels very nippy to me.

 

[Phillip]

This is looking good already, nice work guys!

 

[\o/]

The badges are all gone!

 

[woody]

The badges are all gone!

we don't need no stinking badges...

 

[eva2000]

What's the server setup specs in the end?

Feels very nippy to me.

Yeah TLChris would be interested in eventually seeing a write up article on TAZ's transition from XF 1.5 to 2.1 and transition from origin TAZ server to Google Cloud Computer VMs This would be the kind of stuff TAZ members and fellow forum owners would be interested in reading about

 

[eva2000]

TLChris I did a Webpagetest Cable 5mbps Dulles before and after compare for TAZ 2.1 Centmin Mod Nginx vs 1.5 Litespeed and filmstrip is here.

The 1st html dynamic request from respective PHP response shows TAZ 2.1 with Centmin Mod Nginx on Google Cloud being much faster than with TAZ 1.5 with Litespeed and dedicated. It could be that Chris you chose a Google Cloud VM server with geographic location closer to WPT Dulles US East Coast too ?

But it's expected that from WPT filmstrip visual render times, XF 2.1 out of box is slower than XF 1.5 from my own pagespeed tests and with some pagespeed optimisations can get within 65-90% of XF 1.5's faster visual page speed render times due to the critical render path changes XF 2.1 has compared to XF 1.5

TAZ XF 2.1 Centmin Mod Nginx on Google Cloud



TAZ XF 1.5 Litespeed server on dedicated server



WPT Filmstrip visual render view with Webpagetest Cable 5mbps Dulles where XF 2.1 version initial page speed for first paint was slower at 1.7s. But XF 2.1 was faster in the part that it completes 96% of visual loading at 1.7 seconds mark versus XF 1.5 page speed for first paint is faster at 1.4s due to how the theme/style and web apps have a more optimal critical render path than XF 2.1/theme. But XF 1.5 was slower in that it completes 93% of visual loading at 3.0 seconds mark - probably due to having more 3rd party ads/requests .

Personally, I prefer faster perceived visual render time / speedindex than total page visual load time as it's about how visitors feel visually in terms of page speed. But XF 2.1 out of the box defaults will nearly always have slower visual render speed than XF 1.5.

 

[TLChris]

TLChris I did a Webpagetest Cable 5mbps Dulles before and after compare for TAZ 2.1 Centmin Mod Nginx vs 1.5 Litespeed and filmstrip is here.

The 1st html dynamic request from respective PHP response shows TAZ 2.1 with Centmin Mod Nginx on Google Cloud being much faster than with TAZ 1.5 with Litespeed and dedicated. It could be that Chris you chose a Google Cloud VM server with geographic location closer to WPT Dulles US East Coast too ?

But it's expected that from WPT filmstrip visual render times, XF 2.1 out of box is slower than XF 1.5 from my own pagespeed tests and with some pagespeed optimisations can get within 65-90% of XF 1.5's faster visual page speed render times due to the critical render path changes XF 2.1 has compared to XF 1.5

TAZ XF 2.1 Centmin Mod Nginx on Google Cloud

View attachment 53769

TAZ XF 1.5 Litespeed server on dedicated server

View attachment 53770

WPT Filmstrip visual render view with Webpagetest Cable 5mbps Dulles where XF 2.1 version initial page speed for first paint was slower at 1.7s. But XF 2.1 was faster in the part that it completes 96% of visual loading at 1.7 seconds mark versus XF 1.5 page speed for first paint is faster at 1.4s due to how the theme/style and web apps have a more optimal critical render path than XF 2.1/theme. But XF 1.5 was slower in that it completes 93% of visual loading at 3.0 seconds mark - probably due to having more 3rd party ads/requests .

Personally, I prefer faster perceived visual render time / speedindex than total page visual load time as it's about how visitors feel visually in terms of page speed. But XF 2.1 out of the box defaults will nearly always have slower visual render speed than XF 1.5.

View attachment 53768

To think that was before I implemented the caching as well! Hope to switch to Redis shortly.
Thank you for the analysis eva2000. I don't believe this instance is closer to D.C. I need to double check that.

 

[eva2000]

To think that was before I implemented the caching as well! Hope to switch to Redis shortly.
Thank you for the analysis eva2000. I don't believe this instance is closer to D.C. I need to double check that.

Looking forward to more speed. Though that is probably due to having less 3rd party ads/requests right now too

 

[Threadloom]

eva2000 When TLChris upgraded TAZ to XF2.1 yesterday, we also added a GCP load balancer in front and enabled gCloud CDN. So it's riding now on Google edge caches + anycast. We probably could've made it easier to compare XF1.5 vs. XF2.1 by deferring the load balancer and CDN.

 

[eva2000]

eva2000 When TLChris upgraded TAZ to XF2.1 yesterday, we also added a GCP load balancer in front and enabled gCloud CDN. So it's riding now on Google edge caches + anycast. We probably could've made it easier to compare XF1.5 vs. XF2.1 by deferring the load balancer and CDN.

Ah that would explain the faster response time for requests giving there's CDN deployed

 

[PoetJC]

Whoa! Logged in and saw TAZ upgraded to XF 2 = FINALLY CONGRATS on the upgrade. Looking really nice fellas and all who made the upgrade come to fruition.
AND...... Suweeeet! Just in time to have made my 21,000th post Yay!!!

J.

 

[TLChris]

Whoa! Logged in and saw TAZ upgraded to XF 2 = FINALLY CONGRATS on the upgrade. Looking really nice fellas and all who made the upgrade come to fruition.
AND...... Suweeeet! Just in time to have made my 21,000th post Yay!!!

J.

Congrats and thank you! It's been a community success with the upgrade to XF2.1 Jake was able to correct a major issue with the SSL for the site.
Truly a great experience to see all the folks who want to see TAZ succeed.

 

[mysiteguy]

Are the fonts slightly lighter, slightly different sizes or different font than they were before? Something is making it noticeably harder on my eyes.

 

[Russ]

Are the fonts slightly lighter, slightly different sizes or different font than they were before? Something is making it noticeably harder on my eyes.

New font family, I believe larger fonts in general as well. Contrast wise I made a slight adjustment but not much.



Little accessibility tester.

 

[Jim McClain]

New font family, I believe larger fonts in general as well. Contrast wise I made a slight adjustment but not much.

I'd like to see the font size a bit larger. More important though would be a more noticeable link color.

 

[eva2000]

New font family, I believe larger fonts in general as well. Contrast wise I made a slight adjustment but not much.

If you want folks to stay around reading longer, increase the default font size

For changing this forum font size from 15px to 16px and quote font from 13px to 14.5px seems good

 

[MagicalAzareal]

Are the post ratings going to be imported into reactions?

I do somewhat miss the wide range of ratings the site had before for posts, but I understand that it's a big WIP of sorts. It's interesting to see things progress.

 

[sbjsbj]

Ah, finally the upgrade is done. Site seems a lot faster and I like the old-new theme. It fits great.

2 things:

1) Can you enable push, please?

2) I am using the darktheme and the big bold blue post bars are too thick and making it hard for the eyes. It takes the focus on the blue bars instead on the texts, which are grayed out. Not sure what can be done here. Also a pro tip, increase all font-sizes by 3 px. It makes browsing a lot better in my experience.