Steven, I am not sure that you need to do any hacks. I had some help from Paul to sort this, and I posted in the plugins database, but the comment has no perma-link. Here is what I posted:
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You can't run Awesome bar AND the built in Nav and Settings menus. Just to much overhead. I did all my testing on decaf with these OFF and somehow someone added them in recently.
So, you are best to
1) go to home page and for NAV and SETTINGS blocks show on front page only
2) Then "hide on front page"
3) in DECAF settings set both to 'Show on front page=NO".
Slowness problem gone.
Using Decaf is a philosophical change: ditch the regular nav and settings bar - posted 8 FEB 2013 (on page 2 of the comments at this point in time)
https://moodle.org/plugins/view.php?plugin=theme_decaf
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Other random notes:
- "Help" for decaf: There is no central help for Decaf, so I started a page recently here: http://docs.moodle.org/24/en/Decaf_theme I have domestic stuff to do today and then will get to this tomorrow. Feel free to write!! Currently it is a hack of the rocket theme page which has some overstatements by Moodleman. I'll write the overstatements for Decaf.
- I have now worked with staff over a huge range of abilities, inclinations etc. The comparison between standard Moodle in 1.9, standard Moodle in 2.X and decaf runs like this for my limited and unscientific sample:
STAFF: one person dislikes the menus. Everyone else thinks decaf is 'better'. N=60
STUDENTS: of a few who have used both, all prefer decaf. - My opinion. DON'T hack the theme: create a daughter theme. Richard, Mary and Paul have all worked on this. eg here: https://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=204541#p903453 I can write more on this.
There are two options: Theme X > add awesome bar. (See Richards post here: https://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=204541#p903453) OR: Decaf > your tweaked daughter theme. - There are wish lists floating around. Top of the list obviously is the logo. I'm kind of hanging off on this until the user upload logo functionality arrives. (I must try to find out if it is in 2.5)
- The downsides of decaf: I'm also looking at the options for finding simple quiz reports which is plain messy in decaf, but may be partly fixed in 2.5 - there are a few other menus that work like this - a bit long. I think that there is some room for tweaking the layout of the columns, spaces, lines etc in standard decaf. I've seen a few installs that have made improvements. As an amateur, all I have ended up doing is breaking IE.
Debugging ON has a cool little floating panel, but doesn't show all the information you may want.
Cheers.
-Derek