Should I use W3 Total cache with The Events Calendar Pro?

[Lucy]

Hello,

I have seen various posts on this subject but have been left confused on whether I should / can safely use a caching plugin such as W3 Total cache, with The Events Calendar Pro plugin.

I have seen this post which tells me how to exclude the /events/ folder from JS & CSS minifying:-

W3 Total Cache breaking calendar view

.. but then seen posts like this which tell me to turn off minification altogether:-

Conflicts with WT3 Total Cache

– and then I have read documentation on here which advises that since your calendar updates frequently – you do not want caching to mean you serve up old events to viewers.

Please can you advise me on the correct thing to do, to cache or not to cache! – obviously I want my client’s site to run as fast as possible – and if i can use W3 Total cache but keep minification disabled altogether / or exclude just the TEC plugin files i’ll do that…?

Many thanks in advance!

Lucy

[Lucy]

– P.S – one thing the page speed tests tell me to do is concatenate my js and css files – and again I am wondering how this affects the Events calendar plugin

[Andras]

Hi Lucy,

Thanks for reaching out! Let me try to help you out.

How a caching plugin like W3 Total Cache affects a site can differ a lot, depending on the theme and the plugins used. It a lot of cases the effects of the different settings can be tested by trial-and-error: if it helps leave it on, if it doesn’t, then switch it off.

I would recommend you to read through the following articles in our knowledge base:

Caching Basics

The Calendar Doesn’t Look Right

https://theeventscalendar.com/the-events-calendar-performance-considerations/

 

Let me know if this helps and if you have any followup questions.

Cheers,
Andras

 

[Lucy]

Thanks for your links to all the info on caching.

I have decided to do trial and error with W3 Total cache, excluding minifying from all of the TEC plugin’s files. One question i have now is, if after each time i add a new event/amend one, i click to clear the cache with the button that pops up from W3 Total cache in the back-end, will this prevent the issue of events not updatin gon viewers machone? – or is it down to the viewer’s peronal browser cache whther it serves up the very latest verion of the site or not?

I hope that makes sense!

Thanks very much in advance,
Lucy

[Andras]

Hey Lucy,

It also depends on the viewer’s personal browser cache as well: how much disk space the user is using for cache and how much the user is browsing. The less space and more browsing means it won’t be a problem. More space used and less browsing means it will stay in the cache longer (it will not be replaced by other data).

Also depends on what the expiry settings of the pages / data are. I’m not a pro in W3 Total Cache, but there might be a setting for this either something like ‘Expiry’ or ‘Use browser cache’.

Let me know if this helps.

Andras

[Support Droid]

Hey there! This thread has been pretty quiet for the last three weeks, so we’re going to go ahead and close it to avoid confusion with other topics. If you’re still looking for help with this, please do open a new thread, reference this one and we’d be more than happy to continue the conversation over there.

Thanks so much!
The Events Calendar Support Team

[Author]

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