We've just added support for macro caching.

The short explanation is that any macro which takes advantage of caching will now run *much* faster after the first time it is used.

It's actually a little more complicated than that, because some macros must be cached multiple times: once per page, or even once per page and per user level (guest, member, or admin).

Whether or not a macro supports caching is entirely up to the macro. Some macros will never support caching. There is nothing to gain from a cached msgSubject macro, and a cached memberLinks macro could be entirely counter-productive.

At the moment, only one macro in the entire system supports caching: the #navCalendar macro, which produces the calendar widget on the DG Calendar Pages. We're adding support to other macros on a case-by-case basis, and at this time are NOT looking for feature requests.

The navCalendar documenation has been updated to reflect the new caching features, including some optional attributes to shut off some or all caching.

We're planning to add caching support primarily to the high-level macros which do the most work. There are some macros in Conversant that are extremely powerful, but also quite slow because of their flexibility. By adding caching support, we can make these macros the fastest in the system. (Just think, the #insertQuery macro will actually run as fast as a single #msgSubject macro.)

We're excited about this new feature, but we're moving cautiously. Our intent is that your conversations will take advantage of caching without having to do anything, and that those macros which support caching will allow you to tune it slightly (or disable it) as you see fit. This could dramatically increase the performance of all Conversant sites and servers, resulting in faster pages and servers which support more traffic.

Please let us know if you run into any problems with your DG Calendar pages (specifically, the navigation calendars).