Topic: What are the limits of SP?

[denden60]

Let's say that I have multiple sub-forums and use 100 blocks per sub-forums, how many sub-forum could I have?

Thank you
Denis

[♦ Ninja ZX-10RR ♦]

Welcome to SimplePortal denden60,

I am not aware of any limit related to placing blocks, but if you need to place *THAT* many I reaaaally recommend you to re-design what you are trying to achieve, as it's gonna be basically impossible to maintain and configure them properly... For human limits.

Regards

[andy]

I think the limits are not a problem with Simple Portal but more likely with your server. With so many scripts running and potentially a high number of users, you will need a lot of resources.  Cheap webhosting plans will not allow that much.

You also need to consider how your users view the site. Many blocks do not look good on small mobile devices. I now shift side blocks to top and bottom  when the screen view is narrow but too many blocks means the board takes a long time to scroll to.
Its a problem for people who what to advertise but not good when site visitors only see a stream of Ads and no content they are searching for. A better way is a smaller number of blocks and random/alternating display within them.

[♦ Ninja ZX-10RR ♦]

That too, indeed. Thanks for pointing it out

[denden60]

Thank you for your feedback.

100 blocks per sub-forums means that 100 blocks will be used anywhere in the different categories, sections and subsections. I don't intend to use more than 4 to 6 blocks per subsections.

As for resources, I already use a VPS, so to start with it should be OK. However, I do think that I will have my own server not to far down the line.

I do understand the human limitation as well. Hopefully, I will use one instance of Simple Portal per instance of SMF.

 

[Eliana Tamerin]

The theoretical limits of SP are probably the same as SMF, which is really up to your server RAM, physical space and database processing limits. If you have thousands of users hitting hundreds of blocks on forums, you're going to have hundreds of thousands of queries. A simple MySQL database just can't handle that kind of load with its default settings.

You'll want to look into some of the Big Board tweaks over at SimpleMachines.org if you intend to have a large board with many users, whether or not SimplePortal is involved.

[emanuele]

First you have to get there with hundreds of thousands of users though.