Storage Locations

The Forum ☛ Configuration ☛ Storage Locations panel is where you can configure the locations for SPF to store most of its data. Storing the data outside of the simple-forum plugin folder can be useful if you are making customizations as the location will not get overridden during an upgrade.

Why Change Locations?

There are two compelling reasons to site some Simple:Press Forum files outside of the WordPress plugins folder:

• WordPress periodically scans all the files in all of your plugins. This obviously takes time. By removing some of them from the plugins folder, they will not be included in these scans which will aid general performance.
• If you make customisations to skins or icons or add hooks, custom filters or pluggable code, storing these files outside of the plugins folder ensures they will never be touched by an upgrade of the plugin.

The downside of course, is that you have to manually move components to their new location and also copy these components into their new home on subsequent upgrades of Simple:Press Forum.

The Rules

The rules are simple and straightforward:

• All locations must reside under the WordPress ‘wp-content’ folder.
• You are responsible for creating the new folder locations and setting the appropriate permissions.
• You are responsible for copying the content from their current locations to their new, custom locations.
• You are responsible for maintaining these folders and re-copying where required on future upgrades.

Specifying the New Locations

To specify a new, custom location, simply enter the exact path NOT including the ‘wp-content’ folder which is assumed. Any leading or trailing slashes will be removed as they are not required. Locations that exist will be shown with the tick graphic. Any that do not will be shown with the cross graphic.

If the folder is writeable, a pencil icon will show, if not a red ‘denied’ icon will show which means that permissions on the folder require setting for file saving to take place.