Category Archives: wordpress

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!

How to fix render-blocking jquery.js in Autoptimize

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Autoptimize by default excludes inline JS and jquery.js from optimization. Inline JS is excluded because it is a typical cache-buster (due to changing variables in it) and as inline JS often requires jQuery being available as a consequence that needs to be excluded as well. The result of this “safe default” however is that jquery.js is a render-blocking resource. So even if you’re doing “inline & defer CSS” your Start-Render time (or one of the variations thereof) will be sub-optimal.

Jonas, the smart guy behind criticalcss.com, proposed to embed inline JS that requires jQuery in a function that executes after the DomContentLoaded event. And so I created a small code snippet as a proof of concept which hooks into Autoptimize’s API and that seems to work just fine;

The next step is having some cutting-edge Autoptimize users test this in the wild. You can view/ download the code from this gist  and add it as a code snippet (or if you insist in your theme’s functions.php). Your feedback is more then welcome, I’m sure you know where to find me!

(When) Should you update to WordPress 5.0?

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Concerning the very short-notice release-announcement of WordPress 5.0 with Gutenberg for Dec 6th: I’m with Yoast;He has a great “should I update”-checklist and conclusion in this blogpost;

  • Is now the right time to update?
  • Can your site work with Gutenberg?
  • Do you need it?

So our advice boils down to: if you can wait, wait. 

So if you have a busy end-of-year, if you’re not 100% sure your site will work with Gutenburg or if you don’t really need Gutenberg in the first place; wait (while WordPress 5.0 stabilizes with some minor releases).

Warning: Divi purging Autoptimize’s cache!

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A heads-up to Autoptimize users who are using Divi (and potentially other Elegant Theme’s themes); as discovered and documented by Chris, Divi purges Autoptimize’s cache every time a page/ post is published (or saved?).

To be clear; there is no reason for the AO cache being cleared at that point as:

  1. A new page/ post does not introduce new CSS/ JS
  2. Even if new CSS/ JS would be added somehow, AO would automatically pick up on that and create new optimized CSS/ JS.

Chris contacted Divi support to get this fixed, so this is in the ticketing queue, but if you’re using Divi and  encounter slower saving of posts/ pages or Autoptimized files mysteriously disappearing then his workaround can help you until ET fixes this.

LYTE YouTube API use warning mail

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WP YouTube Lyte users might have received the following mail from Google/ YouTube:

This is to inform you that we noticed your project(s) has not accessed or used the YouTube Data API Service in the past 60 days.

Please note, if your project(s) remains inactive for another 30 days from the date of this email (November 9, 2018), we will disable your project’s access to, or use of, the YouTube API Data Service. As per Section III(D)(4) of the YouTube API Services Developer Policies (link), YouTube has the right to disable your access to, and use of, the YouTube Data API Service if your project has been inactive for 90 consecutive days.

The reason for this is that LYTE caches the responses from YouTube to ensure optimal performance. You can check your API usage at  https://console.developers.google.com/apis/dashboard. In my case it actually was not inactive although not very active either;

To make sure my API access would not get disabled I ticked the “Empty WP YouTube Lyte’s cache” checkbox in LYTE’s settings, saved changes to force LYTE to re-request the data from the YT API when pages/ posts with LYTE’s being requested again. The result:

I do have a non-neglectable number of videos on this little blog already, but here’s one more for a rainy Saturday-afternoon;

Damien Jurado "Allocate" live | Amsterdam 2018, 2 Meter Sessions

Watch this video on YouTube.