W3 total Cache Plugin & MaxCDN

[tdpsgm]

I am looking to see if anyone has experience with the 'W3 Total Cache' plugin and how it integrates with Catalyst.

I had a wp site themed and then in an effort to speed it up, integrated the W3 total cache plugin and signed up for MaxCDN's Content Delivery Network ==> (it acts like Amazons Cloud Front - caching files on servers closer to who ever is looking at your site)

..... Anyway, in the process of trouble shooting the problem we ran a couple of page load tests at http://www.webpagetest.org/ and besides figuring out it was the server that was the problem, I notice that some of the images were not being served by the CDN.

Upon chatting with the maxcdn support folks - they said:


"...that means that whoever created your theme did not use the WP hooks."

I am not sure how the fellow could have done that - I thought everything in wordpress was relevant to the hooks (it was my header.jpg file in fact).

Can you theme WP without using the hooks?

Is everything that I do with Catalyst specifically relative to the hooks (I think I know the answer - I am just asking to be sure)?

Thanks

[justme]

Okay I had an answer half written and read your post again. Do you mean you had the described issue with a theme other than Catalyst? Because – trust me on this – Catalyst uses hooks. ;)

In fact I don’t believe you could build a true theme framework without heavy use of hooks. Some simple themes don’t use hooks and could indeed cause you some issues.

As far as using Catalyst is concerned, it has been designed to give you the power and flexibility of using WordPress Hooks without needing to know anything about them. And the Advanced Options offer even more capabilities still without writing any code yourself or very little such as some HTML and CSS.

[tdpsgm]

We had someone do a custom theme for us. My understanding of HTML is OK.
PHP . . . definitely less, but I have tinkered with it in the past to make it suit my needs.

As far as 'custom' theming is concerned - I don't have time for that, but Catalyst sure looks like something I could use and gives one the flexibility to be as complex as one would want to get.

.... Anyhow,

In fact I don’t believe you could build a true theme framework without heavy use of hooks. Some simple themes don’t use hooks and could indeed cause you some issues.
That would seem to be in sync with what the folks said at MaxCDN.



As far as using Catalyst is concerned, it has been designed to give you the power and flexibility of using WordPress Hooks without needing to know anything about them. And the Advanced Options offer even more capabilities still without writing any code yourself or very little such as some HTML and CSS.

.... that is what I am hoping. I just have to solve my other problem (another post located here: http://catalysttheme.com/forum/showthread.php?462-dynamik-Options-not-working... (http://catalysttheme.com/forum/showthread.php?462-dynamik-Options-not-working...)) before I can fully test the system.

Has anyone used the "W3 Total Cache" plugin before - with Catalyst?

Thanks for the response justme!