autoptimize beta

Autoptimize 3.0 almost done, want to test?

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Work on Autoptimize 3.0 is almost finished and it has some big changes both functionally and technically;

  • fundamental change for new installations: by default Autoptimize will not aggregate JS/ CSS any more (HTTP/2 is ubiquitous and there are other advantages to not aggregating esp. re. inline JS/ CSS and dependencies)
  • new: no API needed any more to create manual critical CSS rules.
  • new: “disable global styles” option on the “Extra” tab.
  • new: compatibility logic for “edit with Elementor”, “revolution slider”, for non-aggregated inline JS requiring jQuery even if not excluded (= auto-exclude of jQuery) and JS-heavy WordPress blocks (Gutenberg)
  • improvement: defer inline now also allowed if inline JS contains nonce or post_id.
  • improvement: settings export/ import on critical CSS tab now takes into account all Autoptimize settings, not just the critical CSS ones.
  • technical improvement: all criticalCSS classes were refactored, removing use of global variables.
  • technical improvement: automated unit tests on Travis-CI for PHP versions 7.2 to 8.1.
  • fix: stop Divi from clearing Autoptimize’s cache which is pretty counter-productive.
  • misc smaller fixes/ improvements, see the GitHub commit log

Obviously given the amount of changes, thorough non-regression tests are required and that’s where you come in; you can download Autoptimize 3 beta from GitHub and install it instead of 2.9.5.1.

As some of the changes (esp. the new defaults for CSS & JS optimization) are only applicable to new installations (so not upgrades from 2.9.x), having that tested would be much appreciated as well 🙂

Looking forward to your feedback people!

peace & love,
frank

New in AO 3.0 beta: preload images for better LCP

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A couple of days ago while racing my bicycle and not really thinking much, the next idea for Autoptimize just came to move; add a field to the metabox to allow an image to be specified as “to be preloaded” to help with Largest Contentful Paint.

Well, this has now been committed to the beta-version in 3 guises; when image optimization or image lazyload is active, AO will look for the full <img tag and use that to create a responsive preload tag. If the preload does not match an <img tag or if those 2 optimizations are not active, AO will add a non-responsive preload.

But enough writing, why don’t you go off to download the Beta now and play with it yourself already? All feedback is welcome!

The AO metabox with the new LCP preload field.

Autoptimize 2.9 final beta, testers wanted!

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I just upped Autoptimize 2.9 beta to version 4, which is likely to be the last version before the official 2.9 release (eta end June/ early July).
Main new features;

You can download the beta from Github (do disable 2.8.x before activating 2.9-beta-4) and you can log any issues/ bugs over at https://github.com/futtta/autoptimize/issues
Looking forward to your feedback!

Santa wrapping up Autoptimize 2.8!

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I’m sure you have been good this year so Santa cannot but put a nice ribbon around the next version of Autoptimize, out later this month. These are the most important changes:

  • JavaScript: new option “defer but don’t aggregate” which *might* help with “total blocking time”
  • Images: add field to list images to be excluded from image optimization
  • Critical CSS: major improvements of the job processing mechanism, reducing time spent from up to 1 minute to just a couple of seconds.
  • Critical CSS: under “advanced options” replace “request limit” with “queue processing time limit” (default 30s).
  • Extra | Google Fonts: better parsing of version 2 Google Font URL’s (/css2/).
  • Misc. other minor fixes, see the GitHub commit log

In case you want to give Santa a hand with all that wrapping up, you can always download the Beta version here and take it out for a spin.

Autoptimize 2.7 with Critical CSS integrated, beta out

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The title says it all; I just pushed the first beta of Autoptimize 2.7 which has some small fixes/ improvements but which most importantly finally sees the “Autoptimize CriticalCSS.com power-up” fully integrated.

Next to the actual integration and switching to object-oriented for most (but not all) of AOCCSS files, there are some minor functional changes as well, most visible ones being buttons to clear all rules and to clear all jobs from the queue.
I hope to be able to release AO27 officially in April, but for that I need the beta thoroughly tested off course. Most important part to test is the critical CSS logic obviously, so if you have the power-up running, download/ install the beta and simply disable the power-up to have Autoptimize fill that void (if the power-up is active, AO refrains from loading it’s own critical CSS functionality).

Autoptimize 2.6 almost ready, beta testers needed!

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It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas ladies & gentlemen and I’m planning on putting Autoptimize 2.6 nicely wrapped up under your Christmas tree.
The new version comes with the following changes;

  • New: Autoptimize can be configured at network level or at individual site-level when on multisite.
  • Extra: new option to specify what resources need to be preloaded.
  • Extra: add `display=swap` to Autoptimized (CSS-based) Google Fonts.
  • Images: support for lazyloading of background-images when set in the inline style attribute of a div.
  • Images: updated to lazysizes 5.1.2 (5.2 is in beta now, might be integrated in AO26 if released in time).
  • CSS/ JS: no longer add type attributes to Autoptimized resources.
  • Improvement: cache clearing now also integrates with Kinsta, WP-Optimize & Nginx helper.
  • Added “Critical CSS” tab to highlight the criticalcss.com integration, which will be fully included in Autoptimize 2.7.
  • Large batch of misc. smaller improvements & fixes, more info in the [GitHub commit log](https://github.com/futtta/autoptimize/commits/beta).

So in order to make this the smoothest release possible I would like the beta to be downloaded and tested by as many people as possible, including you!
Any issue/ question/ bug can be reported here as a reply or if a bug and if you’re more technically inclined over at Github as an issue. Looking forward to your feedback!

Autoptimize 2.5 almost ready, last call for testers!

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Autoptimize 2.5 is almost ready! It features a new “Images”-tab to house all Image optimization options, including support for lazy-loading images and WebP (the only next-gen image format that really matters, no?);

So download the beta and test lazy-loading and WebP (and all of the other changes) and let me know of any issue you might find!

Autoptimize 2.5 beta: image lazy loading

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2018 is end of life and 2019 will be released soon. Autoptimize 2.5 is not at that point yet, but I just pushed a version to GitHub which adds image lazy loading to Autoptimize;

The actual lazy-loading is implemented by the integrated lazysizes JS lazy loader which has a lot of options some of which I will experiment with and bring to Autoptimize to the default improve user experience.
If you want you can download the beta (2.5.0-beta2) now from Github (disable 2.4.4 before activating the beta) and start using the new functionality immediately. And if you have feedback; shoot, I’ll be happy to take your remarks with me to bring AO 2.5 ready for release (I’m targeting March, but we’ll see).
Enjoy the celebrations and have a great 2019!

Autoptimize 2.4 beta 3 includes image optimization!

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We’re finalizing work on Autoptimize 2.4 with beta-3, which was just released. There are misc. changes under the hood, but the main functional change is the inclusion of image optimization!
This feature uses Shortpixel’s smart image optimization proxy, where requests for images are routed through their URL and automagically optimized. As the image proxy is hosted on one of the best preforming CDN’s with truly global presence obviously using HTTP/2 for parallelized requests, as the parameters are not in a query-string but are part of the URL and as behind the scenes the same superb image optimization logic is used that can also be found in the existing Shortpixel plugin, you can expect great results from just ticking that “optimize image” checkbox on the “Extra” tab 🙂
Image optimization will be completely free during the 2.4 Beta-period. After the official 2.4 release this will remain free up until a still to be defined threshold per domain, after which additional service can be purchased at Shortpixel’s.
If you’re already running AO 2.4 beta-2, you’ll be prompted to upgrade. And if you’d like to join the beta to test image optimization, you can download the zip-file here. The only thing I ask in return is feedback (bugs, praise, yay’s, meh’s, …)  😉
 

Autoptimize 2.4 beta 2; hooking into page cache purges and better Google Fonts handling

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I just pushed out an update of the Autoptimize 2.4 beta branch on GitHub, with this in the changelog;

  • new: Autoptimize “listens” to page caches being cleared, upon which it purges it’s own cache as well. Support depends on known action hooks firing by the page cache, supported by Hyper Cache, WP Rocket, W3 Total Cache, KeyCDN Cache Enabler, support confirmed coming in WP Fastest Cache and Comet Cache.
  • new: Google Fonts can now be “aggregated & preloaded”, this uses CSS which is loaded non render-blocking
  • improvement: “remove all Google Fonts” is now more careful (avoiding removing entire CSS

We’re still looking for beta-testers and some of these new features might convince you to jump on board? You can download the zip-file here, installing it a simple one-time process:

  1. Deactivate Autoptimize 2.3.x
  2. Go to Plugins -> New -> Upload
  3. Select the downloaded zipfile and upload
  4. Click activate
  5. Go to Settings -> Autoptimize to review some of the new settings

In case of any problem; we’re actively looking for feedback in the GitHub Issue queue 🙂