Class Schedule Plugin

[davidlab.be]

Hey guys…I wanted to post a link to get some usability feedback from you. I made a WP plugin that displays a seven day week schedule and need more testing from users like yourself. I have a mile long todo list in terms of cleaning the code and such so I am basically looking to see how it acts on your system.
The calendar is fully responsive and with a ton of features that will coming out in time. Right now I want to release a basic version of it and then release updates to more features.
Take a look and give it a spin if you want and please understand that I am not trying to drive traffic to a the site for marketing purposes. The site is a local yoga studio and sells no products.
[Banyan Tree Yoga](http://banyantreeyoganh.com/class-schedule/ “”)

[jimtrue]

Very impressive and it looks great.

[chrisburton]

I agree. This is really nice. One thing I noticed is that when you click on a date in the calendar, there seems to be a lag before executing to change the page. If it were me, I would probably incorporate AJAX. It would look much smoother.

[davidlab.be]

I am currently rebuilding the entire plugin from ground up in hopes to make it more stream lined. It actually uses AJAX, but still a little laggy. I think it is the sql for the class loop…I hope to refine the sql to make it smoother and quicker.

[Chris Coyier]

Nice! Really does look great. I experienced some slow loading as well, but maybe just some caching can fix that. Although I’m not sure how complex that would get with Ajax.

I don’t know much about this, but I know a hip thing in WordPress development related to this is “Transients” — http://codex.wordpress.org/Transients_API

[davidlab.be]

Great find…I will look into later when I have a chance. I also want to add a loading gif so at least the user will see that something is actually taking place while the page loads. Like I said I am currently redesigning the entire plugin so this is the time to play with different ideas. Any feedback or suggestions are always welcome.

[davidlab.be]

Ok…@chriscoyier, @chrisburton. Until I redesign the plugin I added a pre-loader .gif. At least it gives the user some indication that the page is doing something. I roughed it in as I did not want to spend much time on perfecting it. Looks ok for now.
I looked over transients and need to try a few test with it to see if I can use it in this case. Do you know any cool tricks for caching?
Thanks again.

[chrisburton]

@springlab Yeah, I wouldn’t use that big of a gif loader right on top of the content. Perhaps a much smaller one somewhere next to the other buttons (previous, current, next) just above.

I’m not the person to ask about caching but what I would start with is adding an additional minified JS file. So in other words, if you have plugin.js, I would minify that but save it to plugin.min.js and call that version in the header (or footer).

I just found this article for caching ajax – http://davidwalsh.name/cache-ajax

[davidlab.be]

@chrisburton thanks for the link and I will keep that in mind as another option. Once the plugin is final I had plans on condensing all the files (css and js), but thanks for the tip and much appreciated.

@chriscoyier transients might be the way to go. I spent a few minutes actually testing it in my code and looks like it might work. I just need to test the speed and other factors. Love it when someone finds me a new toy to play with!

[davidlab.be]

UPDATE…..I set up transients and here are the numbers.

Before = .013

After = .007

Total saved = .006

The trick I had was that each week view would create dynamic transients based on the dates and the day of the week. The transients key name would be the date of the week…prefixed with a static keyword (example… cs_{$date_of_week}. So in order to flush the transients when classes were added or edited I could not simply call the delete_transients(key_name). I had to manually delete the transients with a little custom sql and a wild card. Simple put…delete all (_transients_cs_%). The wildcard being the dates that are unknown to be cached. Ok..I will stop the rambling.
I have not updated the site in the link above with this…this has been all local testing.

[joerallen]

@springlab…do you have this plugin available to purchase or download?

[davidlab.be]

@joerallen
The website is now been changed and is using mindbody software which is truly overpriced. If you are referring to the old link showing my plugin then that plugin is still under development. However, if you want to try it as is then we can talk if you want.

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