Blog content is usually the answer, forums can contain the discussion/path to the answer.....and thats worth so much more.

Off course, tha'll work!
Thanks heaps for that!

Nick picking at its finest

Just for comparison heres a discourse page without an image on it....
http://www.webpagetest.org/result/150811_NW_N3Q/
First View
(5.770s)
Repeat View
(4.699s)
Compared to the nodebb one you listed....
First View
(4.117s)
Repeat View
(2.946s)

Have a look at the output of PageSpeed and say what you think they should do for each issue?...bet you dont come up with much this site isnt really doing that much wrong.
The only thing that was obvious is that all the images for the emoji plugin should be optimized. And minimize the css and html and save a whole 1.5k, whoope.

I just made my first plugin (yay me) and Im happy enough with it, except for one thing.
Right now Im adding a script tag to the page using the Custom HTML & CSS, which works but is rather bleh.
Id like to be able to inject it from code in the plugin some how, so the user doesnt have to add that stuff to the custom html.
The script tag links to the dropbox dropin api stuff, so it wouldnt be a good idea to down it and link locally.

I put it on Github incase that helps....
https://github.com/PAEz/nodebb-plugin-dropbox-chooser
...if you wanna see it working its on c9.....
https://nodebb-paez.c9.io/

OH, and its a button for composer that allows you to pick a file from github using its chooser dropin and add its link to the post.

I know this is old but it came up when I was looking for an answer, so for those that come after.....

Redis is already on c9 and its old.
Following is some quick instructions that get it working but please understand i REALLY DONT know what Im doing
The instructions are base off...
https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-install-and-use-redis

Remove the old redis stuff
Do you need to do this?...no idea

$ sudo service redis-server stop
$ sudo dpkg -P redis-server
$ sudo dpkg -P redis-tools

Download and make the new Redis 3.0.x

paez@nodebb:~/workspace $ mkdir redis
$ cd redis
wget http://download.redis.io/releases/redis-stable.tar.gz
tar xzf redis-stable.tar.gz
cd redis-stable
make
sudo make install

Install
During the install the default path for where to put the executable s was wrong and I think it was /usr/bin/
Also, select port 16379, because the old redis is still running and Im still not sure how to turn it off properly. But your new one will work fine if you set nodeBB to the new one. I did get rid of it once, but not exactly sure how.

cd utils
sudo ./install_server.sh

And now you should have a working redis on 0.0.0.0:16379.
Still have the old one running, as I dont know how to get rid of it properly yet.

I tested this with the latest NodeBB and was able to get it to work except I get this error in the console....

WebSocket connection to 'ws://nodebb-c9-paez.c9.io/socket.io/?EIO=3&transport=websocket&sid=Gn4rDgj2XlEILV0FAAAA' failed: Error during WebSocket handshake: Unexpected response code: 400

...and a whole bunch of....
[deprecated] variables.set is deprecated, please use ajaxify.data...
...dont know why and am not likely to find out as Im going to be running it off Openshift, but this hopefully gets someone a little closer....and it does seem to work good enough for theme mucking which is what I wanted the c9 one for.

From C9 to Openshift
If your looking to do this free then you may be real poor like me and how much data you use counts (I buy my net in lots of 500meg, ever meg counts), c9 can help with that.
c9 is an online IDE, using it as your middle man with installing nodebb can allow you to avoid having to down and then up all the nodebb code. Without c9 each test install cost me around 70meg (I think thats what it was), using c9 its under 5.
And the best thing is theres not trick to it, its simple...you do exactly the same steps but from c9's bash tab instead of your computer.

Create an account with c9.
Create a NodeJS workspace.
Open it.
Now just do all the usual steps you'd do in your cli in c9's bash console and you''ll avoid having to down/up anything.....plus you'll get to experience c9's amazing work.

@drew Im sure Ill end up making a plugin at some point, but right now Im just learning Openshift and how to deal with updating and all dat.

If you want to install on OpenShift I found this to make it easier....
https://github.com/ahwayakchih/openshift-nodebb
...works great and even comes with instructions on updating and managing plugins, very helpful.

The redis cart it points to is out of date, so try this one...
https://github.com/transformatordesign/openshift-redis-cart
...that will get you 2.8.x. If you want 3.x your going to have to look around. That one pointed to by jarey is broken. Theres a pull request to fix it and I forked the fix to here....
https://github.com/PAEz/openshift-redis-cart
...so I can use it while I wait for the other to be fixed (hope he fixes it, its linked to all over the place concerning installing nodebb on openshift).

@jarey I tried that cartridge and it wont install at all...check the issues.

Got it working!!!! (NodeBB that is) http://nodebb-paez.rhcloud.com/ names prolly gonna change to forum if that links doesnt work.
Try these two.....
https://github.com/icflorescu/openshift-cartridge-nodejs
https://github.com/transformatordesign/openshift-redis-cart

One problem I only just noticed trying to install nodebb was that nodejs wasnt actually finishing its compiling....that prolly caused a bunch of my probs...mainly the liwp not working.
That redis is at 2.8.13 so up to date and is forked off the one recommended.

Bumma, I have no idea what Im doing.
I installed redis with this catridge...
https://github.com/transformatordesign/openshift-redis-cart
..updated it, which makes it 2.8.21 and still it says it needs version 2.8.9 or above?
Redis-cli works, but NodeBB still bitchs....

2/8 10:02 [287596] - error: Your Redis version is not new enough to support Node
BB, please upgrade Redis to v2.8.9 or higher.

Thanks @drew that worked fine for c9 but for the life of me I cant get it working in Openshift.
The docs end up installing 2.6 and I found 2.8.8 but I need 2.8.9....bumma
Oh and on that, looks like the install docs need updating.

PS...this is freakn sweet!