checking files/snapshotting just got reeeeeeeeeeally slow!

[leehack]

If your site goes 4 or 5 sections deep, your section nav will never show that much, so just limit it to go to section levels 0 + 1. That is all i do anyway and it's really quick. I think you are asking it to read sections it will never need to know or use. Only Norman's dynamic menus do that and even those are fast.

I'm missing something here i must be, think i've missed the problem.

[Darren B]

I'm missing something here i must be, think i've missed the problem.

Nope i dont think so the problem is there Lee, its right at the top of the page

[dave_finlayson]

Lee,

Ours limited the section level to 1 but also combined it with a custom variable set on each section too. Having said that, we found 1 of Normans menus (the flyout fella) just as slow as our custom nav on our big site (1600 products/1 product per section) so I think it may be more to do with the size/setup of the site.

[leehack]

I had a similar Problem Dave with one of Norman's menus, and it is due to it being allowed to read down to the SPP level, you must stop it one level above where the glutton of sections (ie products) appears. Not sure if it had level correction when you may have used it. I take it 2, max 3 levels now and is fine on big sites.

[george]

Would it be scanning the `single products` twice (at different levels)?

[leehack]

In my experience you must limit where it goes, so it should never get to that level IMO. It must be stopped above that level. That is where you should be stopping on SPP sites anyway.

[TraceyHand]

I think I'm beaten

I've recreated the whole thing using a sectionlevel variable (which is probably a better idea anyway is it fixes the whole duplicate problem and it's only SPP items that are appearing in the list anyway)

Set the 16 to true...concocted the code and it works fine.
Started simple to start with..just ShowInFlagBanner == true, then gradually added sectionname (the grandparent section that sits above all the selected sections (with a section level in between)..they're all under the same catalogue section)...then added the sectionlevel too.

So, basically, it's only looking in one section, at one level, for this variable to be true.

HOWEVER, it's STILL taking aaaaaaaages.

Below is the code I'm now using

<actinic:block type="EntireSectionList" >
	<actinic:block type="ProductList" >	
	<actinic:block if="%28%3cactinic%3avariable%20name%3d%22SectionName%22%20%2f%3e%20%3d%3d%22National%20Flags%22%29%20OR%20%28%3cactinic%3avariable%20name%3d%22ShowInFlagBanner%28sec%29%22%20%2f%3e%20%3d%3dTRUE%29%20AND%20%28%3cactinic%3avariable%20name%3d%22SectionLevel%22%20%2f%3e%20%3d%3d3%29" >
	 <a href="<actinic:variable name="SearchCGIURL" />?PRODREF=<actinic:variable Name="ProductID" />&amp;NOLOGIN=1<actinic:block if="%3cactinic%3avariable%20name%3d%22IsHostMode%22%20%2f%3e">&amp;SHOP=<actinic:variable name="ShopID" /></actinic:block>">
<img style="border: 1px solid #000000;"  src="<actinic:variable name="SectionImageFileName" />" width="25" height="17" alt="<actinic:variable name="SectionName" />" border="0" /></a>&nbsp;
	</actinic:block>
	</actinic:block>
</actinic:block>

stripping it out, incidentally, "fixes" everything..so it's definitely this code causing it.

I just can't seem to be able to work out a solution where it doesn't kill everything dead

[TraceyHand]

Just to update, the only workable solution in the end was to abandon the use of the EntireSectionList code altogether, same as David had had to do


We've gone for a hardcoded layout instead. Takes longer to swap and change around but more than saves it in processing time which is much more important.

Thanks to everyone who took a look at this for me (and big thanks to David for pointing me to the problem)

Cheers

[dave_finlayson]

Beaten again by the evil Actinic!

<stops shaking fist at sky and returns to Ireland game>

[TraceyHand]

It's all Gabe's fault. It was his block tutorial that enabled me to be able to get what I wanted to do to work in the first place.

Used it on another site to create a split menu and all was fine..but it doesn't seem to like wading too deep to find what it's looking for (this was section level 3)..or maybe it didn't like pulling out an image, name and link... who knows!?
The site is hardly huge though. It just didn't seem to matter that I was telling it exactly where to look.

Never mind, job done now. Live and learn, eh?

*stops worrying about it and gets out chinese takeaway menu*

[Darren B]

*stops worrying about it and gets out chinese takeaway menu*

Hmmmmm even on sunday afternoon that sounds good to me

[TraceyHand]

bet you fell asleep in the conservatory instead though

[Darren B]

PMSL

I did for half an hour before i got rudely woken, then dragged out for something to eat, cant complain been and easy day

D

[gabrielcrowe]

This is why its slow:

First of all we are looping the entire section list. then we are looping the products in that section.

Thats not a single db call, to get the EntireSectionList. its one to get the list and one each for all the products in that section.

so there are as many database calls as there are sections, plus 1.

thats a lot.

as said earlier, it makes your actinic go slow becasue its database and block interactions are not evolved enough to afford caching and such.

the solution to this speed problem would be for Actinic to give us a list called 'AllTheSoddingProductsInOneList', instead of this sad hack.

In the mean time, i'll investigate some database caching to speed this whole show up.

[TraceyHand]

Thanks for the explanation, Gabe.
I wasn't really blaming you, of course (or expecting a solution)..as has been said before..the EntireSectionList has the potential to do enable us to do good things..it just won't let us dig too deep without killing everything else in the process.

In this case, I could even have limited the hunt down to one main section (and, subsequently, one section level too)..rather than the entire section list, but it just didn't even want to let me do that.