While I would much prefer to leave it a little longer before releasing yet another update to Simple:Press Forum, 3.1 is going to be one I have to recommend all users upgrading to when it is released. While there are a few new features (mainly requested items) and quite a number of bug fixes as would be expected, the real goal we set ourselves for 3.1 was optimisation. And on that score it has been a very satisfying development.

It may look more or less the same on the surface but under the hood a lot has changed. The first target were database queries as the forum consumes a large number. The good news is that these have been reduced considerably - in some key areas by as much as 85%. But no page displays have been left out. Major cuts in the database calls have been made everywhere and existing queries re-crafted and consolidated.

The second major goal was to take a long hard look at user data handling. The integration with WP user registrations is essential but some aspects of core WP user handling is not ideal and 3.1 sees the introduction of a new table for user forum specific data which has again enabled us to reduce queries and overhead.

The final goal was to build on the permissions structures introduced in 3.0 and to increase overall performance in what is a tricky data area to manipulate. This too has benefited from an increase in performance and query usage and much more key data is now being cached during page load.

As to new features? More on those later when we have a definitive list.

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