Aside from being able to edit files without the Template Manager – is there any advantage to saving templates as files in ExpressionEngine?
Does it improve performance, security, etc.?
Would be grateful for a reply from a knowledgeable person.
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1 Answer
To rewrap your question in a "pros/cons" list:
Pros
- Editing through your favorite editor -> faster
- Enables you to version your files with a VCS
- You can DIFF files
- Easier to maintain code markup/layout
Cons
- Slightly slower because EE needs to check the files for a new version (i guess it only uses the file versions in the latest EE releases).
- Could be a lot slower on a provider with a slow file system.
- Synchronization hassle
For sites who need max performance I tend to work with files on my local development environment and disable "save as file" on the live site (sync templates first!).
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1This is a good list of the Pros and Cons as I recognize them. Though I didn't know about the VCS. That said, you can get most, if not all of the Pros by using Mountee [hellomountee.com]. It's MacOS only option, I believe. But enables: editing via favorite editor; version tracking via the database; can DIFF open files; very easy to maintain mark-up; even allows multi-file FIND & REPLACE, at least in BBEdit. Also nice is you can create new templates, template_groups, move items from one group to another, standard file system stuff. Oh, it can be used with Git, as well. Feb 7, 2013 at 9:04