Plugin Name:WP Widget Cache
Plugin URI: http://www.mashget.com/wp-widget-cache/
Description: Cache the output of your blog widgets. Usually it will significantly reduce the sql queries to your database and speed up your site.
Author: Andrew Zhang
Version: 0.1
Author URI: http://www.mashget.com

A cache plugin for WordPress!

WP Widget Cache can cache the output of your blog widgets. Usually it will significantly reduce the SQL queries to your database and speed up your site.

I think you¡¯ve heard of WP-Cache or WP Super Cache, they are both top plugins for WordPress, which make your site much faster and responsive. Here is how cache works:

"caching WordPress pages and storing them in a static file for serving future requests directly from the file rather than loading and compiling the whole PHP code and the building the page from the database".

So why we need this WP Widget Cache? What¡¯s difference?

WP-Cache or WP Super Cache cache ¡®pages¡¯, and WP Widget Cache cache ¡®widgets¡¯ or your sidebar, that¡¯s the difference.

Let me explain this more clearly:

If some of your page is very popular, and people keep visit this page, then the page cache will be very helpful. But what if the user click some link and visit another page of your blog? Cache another whole page? Actually that¡¯s not necessary for most time. As we all know, WordPress share the same widgets, they¡¯re all the same, maybe on all the pages of your site. For example, the Categories widget, this maybe never change, the Archives widget, maybe changes once a month. So it¡¯s really really not that necessary to query the database again£¬ especially when you use a lot of widgets.

WP Widget Cache is not to replace the WP-Cache or WP Super Cache, it¡¯s a plus for them, as it reducing the cost for caching a new page. you can set the cache time for each widget individually, seconds to years, whatever you like. For Categories widget, days maybe fine, for Recent Comments widget, seconds maybe fine.

I want to say thanks to Alan Trewartha (the author of the Widget Logic plugin) and Dragan Bosnjak, their codes are very helpful for me to finish this plugin.