David Scotson

I believe I've read that proxies can be a bit funny with .js files, some of the optimisation sites recommend embedding smaller scripts within pages for this reason. Unfortunately though I can't locate a good link on the topic right now.

There are other techniques that may apply if anyone thought it worth the time and effort:

• gzip compression
• whitespace and comment stripping
• only including used code (assuming not all of the library is used)

However, I'm wondering if there isn't an alternative approach for pop-ups, maybe even something as simple as title tags.

I'd been meaning to look into some of the other files downloaded by Moodle after I ran it past the Web Page Analyzer.

The spellchecker.js file is relatively new. I take it if you switch off the editor, then you don't need it at all, along with htmlarea.css?

There is also the massive overlib.js, which I'm unsure as to it's purpose. I think maybe it helps with the pop-ups for the calendar but I'm not sure what else.

That last comment about images, I misread my screen. It's actually the styles.php file that's got a 5 minute life. The cacheability checker also says that when it does a conditional GET on this file, the file is sent again, even though it is identical to the one already downloaded.

There is a possible solution for the profile images, uploaded documents and CSS files i.e. any file that you want cached for a long period of time before being instantly updated, and then cached for another long period.

I believe a common trick is to add a 'counter' to the url or filename. When the image (or CSS etc.) is updated you also change the counter. To the browser it seems like a file it has never seen before and so it downloads it for sure.

I also noticed when I was messing around with the Headers Display in Firefox that some of the Moodle images (e.g. Resource type, emoticons) are set to expire after 5 minutes. Was this a conscious decision or is it just the default set by Apache?

Is this option, or something like it, going to be in the main Moodle distribution? I was just about to write up some instructions on how Moodle can replace a standard mailing list for notifying all students when my colleague pointed out that students can silently remove themselves from it.

Even if you take the view that students should control their own email (and I am sympathetic to that) currently there is no way for students to easily switch off all but 'important' emails, so they either get bombarded with email or they get none at all. Is there some compromise postion?

There could be a checkbox at the bottom of the teacher's text entry areas in 'subscribe all' forums to override any other options and ensure that the post goes to everyone in 'emergencies'.

This combined with three stages of email activation: * all mail * no mail from optional forums * no mail from any forum

Alternatively, is there an easy way to see who on your course is 'de-activated'? Maybe a warning: "3 students and 1 teacher will not receive this post via email" with a clickable link to see who they are.

(N Hansen mentioned that people are unaware of the auto-subscribe feature. I've found this to be true with my colleagues. Perhaps there could be an explanatory note on the first email from a forum after being auto-subscribed explaining why the email is being sent and where to change the option?)