MSFP and subwebs

Any reason not to use them?

[Webwork]

I'm looking at this prospectively, as I am in the midst of designing and building several sites that may grow beyond 1,000 pages, possibly much higher numbers.

EFV - I know you/he/his site is >4,000 pages. Any reason not to break it down into subwebs?

Is there a performance hit that anyone is aware of? A physical limitation?

One thing I've read is that, when it comes to updating a large site, you can reduce the 'update wait' by using subwebs since - say in the case of updating includes - you will only have to update the includes in a given subweb.

Anyone with experience using subwebs to any degree care to comment on their use?

Thanks.

[jimbeetle]

I stayed away from subwebs because back when I started using FP it didn't really have a good expanation of exactly what the heck they were and how they worked. So, I can't comment on what speed benefits there might be in updating a site that uses them.

But, one site of about 2,500 pages without subwebs it takes 2 to 5 minutes to run through the publishing process, depending on the number of changed pages. The 'processing web updates' phase rarely takes more than 30 seconds or so, that's even if I change the header and footer that appears on all 2,500 pages.

I think the biggest factor is in what the server is running. The one this site is on has dual something or other CPUs with plenty of memory. That seem to zip it through that update process. With the price of good hosting so cheap, I'd say look for a package with good server hardware to handle the FP load when publishing a large site with a lot of includes.

[pageoneresults]

Anyone with experience using subwebs to any degree care to comment on their use?

Can you define a subweb for me? Are you referring to when you right click a sub-directory and Convert to Web?

If it is Convert to Web, there are some very distinct advantages to operating in this environment.

You can now take an FP Web and break it down into multiple unique webs. Not sub-directories, but actual webs that function on their own. You can also assign unique permissions to that web so certain users can access it. For example, let's say you had a name based directory structure, something like /~name/. Each ~name would be its own web.

Keep in mind that when working with subwebs, you cannot use the includes from your main web. Subwebs are independent of the main web, they will require their own supporting files. Treat a subweb as if it were an individual website.

I prefer the sub-directory approach. Much easier to manage and I can use global files throughout. Makes maintaining a 5,000 page site a breeze if you've got the right site structure. You'll need to plan your directory structure properly so you can take advantage of natural paths, etc.