KeyCDN WordPress Cache Enabler Plugin Updates

Cache Enabler is KeyCDN’s lightweight caching plugin for WordPress that makes websites faster by generating static HTML files. Over the last few months it has gone through a major refactor followed by being nearly completely rewritten. This was done to add enhancements, fix bugs, and improve the overall performance of the plugin itself. The updated code base is cleaner and more efficient. This has allowed many improvements to be made to Cache Enabler and will make adding features in the future much easier than before.

Improving cache clearing, behavior in multisite environments, and increasing compatibility with third party plugins are just some of the changes that were made. Learn more about the WordPress Cache Enabler plugin updates that have been made, or better yet, install the latest version to see for yourself.

Performance & News

Looking to further optimize the performance of your website or application? We’ve written some helpful articles and provide tools to help you with that:

  • Read more about the Cache Enabler plugin updates and install the new version.
  • KeyCDN Tools are free and simplify the problem resolution process of a web project.

Highlights from #random Channels

This month’s highlights from #random channels include topics about web development and performance:

Happy content delivery!

Set up a Azure development environment – Eclipse & IntelliJ IDEA

In this module, we prepared our development environment for creating apps in Azure. we installed the appropriate IDE for your operating system and development requirements, and we added Azure integration to streamline the publishing of content directly to Azure services.

 

Here you’ll install Eclipse and the Azure Toolkit on your development machine. By the end of the exercise, you’ll have everything you need to create a Java application connected to Azure.

Install Eclipse IDE

  1. Download the appropriate Eclipse IDE for your operating system.
  2. Start the Eclipse installer once downloaded.
    • On Windows, double-click the downloaded file.
    • On macOS and Linux, unzip the installer from the downloaded file and run it.

     Note

    The installer may prompt you to install the Java Development Kit, if it is missing.

  3. Select the packages to install. For Java developers, choose either the Java or Java EE Eclipse IDE option.
  4. Select the installation destination on your machine.
  5. Launch Eclipse to validate that it installed correctly.

Install Azure Toolkit for Eclipse

Installing the Azure Toolkit is the same across Windows, macOS, and Linux.

  1. Start Eclipse and open a workspace.
  2. Drag the following button to your running Eclipse workspace to install the Azure Toolkit for Eclipse plugin.
  3. The feature confirm dialog will open. Currently we have no optional feature, click Confirm to continue.eclipse-confirm-feature
  4. Review and accept the license agreements, and click Finish.
  5. Eclipse will download and install the Azure Toolkit.
  6. Restart Eclipse if necessary.
  7. Validate the Azure Toolkit installation by verifying that you can find a Tools > Azure menu option in Eclipse.

 

Here you’ll install IntelliJ IDEA and the Azure Toolkit on your development machine. By the end of the exercise, you’ll have everything you need to create a Java application connected to Azure.

Install IntelliJ IDEA

  1. Download the appropriate IntelliJ IDEA for your operating system.
  2. Start the IntelliJ IDEA installer once downloaded.
    • On Windows, double-click the downloaded file.
    • On macOS and Linux, unzip the installer from the downloaded file and run it.

     Note

    The installer may prompt you to install the Java Development Kit, if it is missing.

  3. Select the installation destination on your machine and confirm other settings.
  4. Launch IntelliJ IDEA to validate that it installed correctly.

 

Install Azure Toolkit for IntelliJ

Installing the Azure Toolkit is the same across Windows, macOS, and Linux.

  1. Start IntelliJ IDEA and open a workspace.
  2. Go to Configure > Settings.
  3. The Settings dialog will open. Select Plugins on the left, search Azure Toolkit for IntelliJ in plugin marketplace.The following screenshot shows the Plugins dialog as described above.intellij 
  4. Click OK, and Install.
  5. Review and accept the license agreements if prompted.
  6. IntelliJ IDEA will download and install the Azure Toolkit.
  7. Restart IntelliJ IDEA after the installation.
  8. Validate the Azure Toolkit installation by verifying that you can see a Tools > Azure menu option in IntelliJ IDEA.

How to Set up Azure development environment for App Dev

Azure development environment

The Eclipse integrated development environment is a popular tool for Java development. It’s also a great choice for connecting your Java applications to Azure; the Azure Toolkit for Eclipse provides templates and features to streamline Azure integration with your Java applications.

Eclipse

Eclipse is one of the most widely used Java IDEs. It is also a versatile development environment, featuring an extensible plugin architecture that can be used to support languages other than Java. While most Eclipse users are Java developers, Eclipse can also be used to build applications with C++, Python, C, and Ruby.

Eclipse is supported on Windows, macOS, and Linux. The installation process uses the Eclipse installer on all platforms, with few differences in installation procedures between the platforms.

Installing Eclipse for Java or Java EE on any platform is straightforward. The installer will prompt you to choose the packages to install depending on the target language and frameworks.

Azure Toolkit for Eclipse

The Azure Toolkit for Eclipse provides templates and functionality that you can use to easily create, develop, test, and deploy cloud applications to Azure from Eclipse. The Azure Toolkit is open source, actively developed, and hosted in GitHub.

The toolkit includes integration templates for Docker containers, HDInsights, Azure documentation, Azure Cache for Redis, storage account operations, and virtual machine management.

 

The Azure Toolkit is installed through the Eclipse IDE itself; it’s the same procedure on all the supported operating systems. The toolkit is available from the Eclipse Marketplace.

The IntelliJ IDEA is a popular IDE for Java development. It’s also a great choice for connecting your Java applications to Azure; the Azure Toolkit for IntelliJ provides templates and features to streamline Azure integration with your Java applications.

IntelliJ IDEA

IntelliJ IDEA is one of the most widely used Java IDEs. It is also a versatile development environment, featuring an extensible plugin architecture that can be used to support languages other than Java. While designed as a Java IDE, IntelliJ IDEA can also be used to build applications with JavaScript, Scala, Ruby, etc.

IntelliJ IDEA is supported on Windows, macOS, and Linux. The installation process uses the IntelliJ IDEA installer on all platforms, with few differences in installation procedures between the platforms.

Installing IntelliJ IDEA for Java or Java EE on any platform is straightforward. The installer will prompt you to choose the packages to install depending on the target language and frameworks.

Azure Toolkit for IntelliJ

The Azure Toolkit for IntelliJ provides templates and functionality that you can use to easily create, develop, test, and deploy cloud applications to Azure or any managed hosting from IntelliJ IDEA. The Azure Toolkit is open source, actively developed, and hosted in GitHub.

The toolkit includes integration templates for Docker containers, HDInsights, Azure documentation, Azure Cache for Redis, storage account operations, and virtual machine management.

The Azure Toolkit is installed through the IntelliJ IDEA itself; it’s the same procedure on all the supported operating systems. The toolkit is available from the IntelliJ IDEA Marketplace.

Visual Studio Code is a popular choice for developing applications for Azure. It’s lightweight, taking up only megabytes of storage space, and works on Windows, Linux, and macOS.

Visual Studio Code

Visual Studio Code is a free source code editor developed by Microsoft. It supports hundreds of programming languages, includes Git integration, and is designed to connect to Azure cloud services.

However, Visual Studio Code doesn’t include a compiler. Code compilation for specific languages and scenarios is added via extensions.

Extension model

One of the most powerful features of Visual Studio Code is the extension model. Extensions extend the capabilities of Visual Studio Code to add a wide range of new capabilities. For example, extensions can be used to add compilers, add spell checking, and integrate with Azure services.

Extensions are free and can be added from the Extensions page within Visual Studio Code. You can explore the available extensions in the Visual Studio Code Marketplace.

Azure extensions

Many of the extensions target Azure features and products. For example, there are extensions that provide features such as Docker support, subscription management, tooling for the Azure CLI, database access, and Azure Storage API integration.

Install Visual Studio Code and prepare for Azure development

Visual Studio Code supports Windows, Linux, and macOS. To install Visual Studio Code, go to https://code.visualstudio.com/.

Visual Studio is a full featured integrated development environment (IDE) for a wide range of programming application types and languages. Visual Studio has a full set of tools and features that are specifically targeted at developing applications with Microsoft Azure. These features provide support for Azure development, debugging, and deployment tools that are tightly integrated with the IDE.

Visual Studio

Visual Studio is a fully featured IDE used to develop applications for a wide range of application types in including Windows, Android, iOS, web, and Azure.

When installing Visual Studio, you’ll see that several workloads are available. Workloads are collections of libraries and components that define an area of functionality that can be installed. Instead of installing an individual component where you must know and remember the dependencies between each, you can use workloads to do “themed” installations. Visual Studio workloads ensure that all necessary components are included.

 

The base installation of Visual Studio comes with no tools or libraries for Azure development. For that, you’ll need to include the Azure development workload, which includes the Azure SDKs, tooling, and template projects.

To install Visual Studio, download the installer. The installer will ask which workloads to install; you’ll specify the Azure development workload. Additional functionality is typically added via NuGet packages or Visual Studio extensions.

Visual Studio for Mac

Visual Studio for Mac is a natively designed and developed IDE for macOS. It lets you build solutions for mobile apps on Android and iOS, the web, and .NET Core.

The base installation of Visual Studio for Mac comes with contextual integration of Azure tooling. For example, if you are building a Xamarin app for Android, then the included Connected Services template will provide a link to create a mobile back end with Azure App Service. If you want to create an Azure function, there is a project template under the Cloud category.

If you require tools for Azure features and functions that aren’t in the base installation, you’ll likely need to add NuGet package or a Visual Studio for Mac extension.

 

To install Visual Studio for Mac, download the installer. The installer will inspect your system to determine what components are required, and whether any components need to be updated.