6 More Must-Do Grav Tweaks: Ready for Hacker News Traffic!

This post explores advanced Grav plugins and Varnish caching for boosting blog performance. We'll cover plugins enhancing user experience, image optimization strategies, and robust search solutions, culminating in a Varnish setup for superior caching.

Key Enhancements:

• Improved User Engagement: Leverage plugins like relatedpages, assets, simplesearch, and JsComments to boost user engagement. relatedpages suggests related posts, assets allows custom JS/CSS, simplesearch provides a search function, and JsComments integrates comment systems.
• Optimized Images and CDNs: Optimize images using the Optimus plugin and leverage a CDN (like MaxCDN) via Grav's CDN plugin to improve load times and manage bandwidth.
• Scalable Search: For large blogs, simplesearch's string-matching approach may become slow. Consider a more powerful search engine for optimal performance with a large post count.
• Varnish for Super-Caching: Implement Varnish, a reverse proxy server, to cache entire pages, dramatically improving speed and protecting your server from traffic surges.

Related Pages Plugin:

To improve user retention, the relatedpages plugin suggests related posts. It uses various methods (title scanning, content parsing, taxonomy matching) to calculate relevance. Integrate it into your template like this:

<code>{% if config.plugins.relatedpages.enabled and related_pages|length > 0 %}
    <h4 id="Related-Posts">Related Posts</h4>
    {% include 'partials/relatedpages.html.twig' %}
{% endif %}</code>

Remember, customize the styling as needed.

Custom JS/CSS with the Assets Plugin:

The assets plugin simplifies adding custom JS/CSS without modifying your theme. Use frontmatter like this:

<code>{assets:js order:10}
custom-script.js
/blog/some-blog/post/script.js
//cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/1140/2.0/1140.min.js
http://somesite.com/js/cookies.min.js
{/assets}

{assets:inline_css}
h1 {color: red !important;}
{/assets}</code>

Note the inline_ prefix for inline CSS/JS.

SimpleSearch Plugin:

The simplesearch plugin adds a search function. Customize the simplesearch_results.html.twig template for a personalized look. Ensure the filters setting in user/config/plugins/simplesearch.yaml is empty (not just absent) for site-wide search:

enabled: true
built_in_css: true
display_button: false
min_query_length: 3
route: /search
filters: ""
template: simplesearch_results
order:
  by: date
  dir: desc

SimpleSearch Performance and Multi-language Considerations:

Performance degrades with many posts due to its string matching. For large sites, consider a more robust solution. If using a multi-language theme, adjust the langswitcher.html.twig partial to handle search query strings correctly.

JsComments Plugin:

Integrate comments using JsComments, supporting various providers (Disqus recommended). Configure it in the Admin UI, then add this to your template:

<code>{% if config.plugins.relatedpages.enabled and related_pages|length > 0 %}
    <h4 id="Related-Posts">Related Posts</h4>
    {% include 'partials/relatedpages.html.twig' %}
{% endif %}</code>

Image Optimization and CDNs:

Use Optimus for image optimization and Grav's CDN plugin with a pullzone CDN for efficient asset delivery. Configure the CDN plugin's user/config/plugins/cdn.yaml file:

<code>{assets:js order:10}
custom-script.js
/blog/some-blog/post/script.js
//cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/1140/2.0/1140.min.js
http://somesite.com/js/cookies.min.js
{/assets}

{assets:inline_css}
h1 {color: red !important;}
{/assets}</code>

Varnish Caching:

Varnish super-caches entire pages. Install it (e.g., sudo apt-get install varnish), configure /etc/default/varnish and /etc/varnish/default.vcl to point to your web server (adjust port and host accordingly). For production, use a non-standard port for your web server and configure Varnish to listen on port 80.

Conclusion:

These plugins and Varnish significantly enhance Grav's performance and functionality, making your blog production-ready. Explore further customization options in future posts.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) remain unchanged and are omitted for brevity.

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