Performance and URLs

JormunTL ▸ Theme Options ▸ Performance and URLs.

Chapter URL Structure

Two shapes, and the card shows an example of each rather than describing them:

With Novel is more readable and tells a reader where they are from the address alone. Simple is shorter and survives a novel being renamed.

Decide this before you publish, and then leave it alone. Changing it changes every chapter URL on the site at once: bookmarks, links other sites have made, and everything search engines have indexed all point at the old shape. If you must change it after launch, expect to add redirects and expect a dip in search traffic while the new addresses are picked up.

Changing it does flush the rewrite rules for you, so there is no need to go and re-save the permalink settings afterwards. The card says so, because that is a step people have learned to do out of habit.

Unused Assets

Emoji Script

On by default, and you can almost certainly leave it there.

WordPress puts a small script on every page whose only job is to check whether the reader’s browser can draw emoji, and to download a 22KB replacement set when it decides the answer is no. It is not something the theme asks for and it is not something a novel site needs.

Turning this on removes both the check and the download. On a browser that fails that check, which includes most Windows desktops, it saves a 22KB file and two requests on every page. On phones it usually saves the smaller script only, because those browsers pass the check and never download the rest.

Emoji still work with this on. They are drawn with the reader’s own font instead of being swapped for pictures. The one visible difference is on Windows, where flag emoji have no glyph and appear as two letters: 🇯🇵 shows as JP. Every other emoji looks the same as before.

Turn it off if your readers rely on flag emoji, or if you would rather emoji looked identical on every device your readers use.

What is not on this tab

Caching and page speed beyond this are hosting rather than theme settings. The one rule that matters is not here and can break your paywall by serving a paid chapter to somebody who has not paid, so read hosting recommendations if you sell chapters.