Sorry if this sounds dumb, but I’m wondering if there’s much overhead by “enabling extensions” - meaning is it adding another query to each page load for ee in every instance of every hook, etc?

Also, as I’m so intent on using ee for a site I’m crazy enough to try to <strike>hack</strike> extend the member profile display, does it make sense to people here who have probably done a lot more customizing of ee than I have to hack in your own extension hook if there is none where you need to hack and at least keep your hacks quarantined to an extension, albeit an “unofficial” one?

Again, I’m just diving into extensions so sorry if these questions are silly…

An extension only adds as much page load as the extension’s code adds.  There are no additional queries unless the extension uses them, and this is only a bad thing if unwise use of the database is made, which is really no different than doing things poorly in a template (i.e. nesting querys / entry tags).

Re: hacking in extension hooks - I have not only done this, but I advocate it thoroughly over “vanilla” hacks.  Even then, though, it should be a last resort maneuver.  There are few things that you cannot work around with creative development that do not require hacks.  Have you posted to the Design and Customization forum with what are needing to accomplish?  If you cannot find a solution that doesn’t involve hacking, it’s possible that someone else might.

Thanks Derek, and for the tip on your site as well, I guess I wan’t crazy then thinking about adding my own hooks after all. And think I might post in the design/customization forum, but I’m basically wanting to show different profile fields and settings menus for different member groups which I’ve figured out with a member settings extension, not to mention show the member templates inside regular ee templates or embed regular ee templates into the member theme (which I know isn’t possible).

Thanks!

Most of that you could probably do with PHP in a template, or by writing a plugin / module, which would leave your backend unhacked.