Another Autoptimize Experiment; Extra’s

So with that nice little page cache experiment concluded, I started working on something that will definitively be included in the next version of Autoptimize; Extra Auto-optimizations!
You can read all about it below or you can skip all of that and immediately download the zipfile of the “AO Extra power-up” from the Github repository.
The 3 features available now;

  • remove Emoji’s
  • remove (version parameter from the) query string (not that big a deal, from a load time perspective, but still)
  • the ability to have Autoptimize add the async attribute to the local or 3rd party JavaScript (local JS-files will be excluded automatically if added here).

There’s one extra feature that will very likely be added; optimize Google Fonts (because removing them is considered harsh, apparently).
Do download, do test and do let me know if anything is broken in the comments or via my contact form. And If you have other ideas for extra features, do let me know too!

Autoptimize 2.1 and first Power-Up released

Yesterday evening I released Autoptimize 2.1 and the first Power-Up to manage critical CSS has been made available as a optional service over at criticalcss.com. This short video explains some of the logic behind the Autoptimize Critical CSS Power-Up:


But let’s not forget about Autoptimize 2.1! The new features include:
  • Autoptimize now appears in the admin-toolbar with an easy view on cache size and the possibility to purge the cache (thanks to Pablo Custo)
  • A “More Optimization”-tab is shown with info about optimization tools- and services.
  • settings-screen now accepts protocol-relative URL for CDN base URL
  • admin GUI updated and responsiveness added
  • If cache size becomes too big, a mail will be sent to the site admin
  • power-users can enable Autoptimize to pre-gzip the autoptimized files with a filter
  • new (smarter) defaults for JS and CSS optimization

Although excluding jQuery from autoptimization by default might seem counter-intuitive, the “smarter” defaults should allow more Autoptimize installs to work out-of-the-box (including on sites run by people who might not be inclined to troubleshoot/ reconfigure Autoptimize in the first place).
And thanks to the release I now have a better idea of the number of active installs (which wordpress.org lists as +100000); 2.1 was downloaded 3239 times yesterday evening and it is listed as running on 1.8% sites. Simple math learns that Autoptimize is currently active on approx. 180000 WordPress websites. Let’s aim for 200K by the end of 2016! 🙂

Autoptimize Power-Up sneak peek; Critical CSS

So although I am taking things rather slowly, I am in fact still working on Power-Ups for Autoptimize, focusing on the one most people were asking for; critical CSS. The Critical CSS Power-Up will allow one to add “above the fold”-CSS for specific pages or types of pages.
The first screenshot shows the main screen (as a tab in Autoptimize), listing the pages for which Critical CSS is to be applied:

The second screenshot shows the “edit”-modal (which is almost the same when adding new rules) where you can choose what rule to create (based on URL or on WordPress Conditional Tag), the actual string from the URL or Conditional Tag and a textarea to copy/ paste the critical CSS:
ao_critcss_edit
The next step will be to contact people who already expressed interest in beta-testing Power-Ups, getting feedback from them to improve and hopefully make “Autoptimize Critical Css” available somewhere in Q3 2016 (but no promises, off course).

Bye 2014, it was nice knowing ya!

this used to be an animated gif, click to see itWith 2014 finally behind us, we can start dwelling on that past as of yesterday. These are some of my 2014 facts & figures:
About my blog:

My WordPress plugins:

  • Autoptimize
    • 2 major and 7 minor releases
    • 141324 downloads, bringing the total to 241650
    • answered lots of questions and feedback on the support-forum, allowing me to improve both the code and the FAQ.
    • 2015 will bring Autoptimize 2.0 (fixing the occasional WSOD & the cache-size problem) and Autoptimize Power-Ups (extensions for professional & power-users)
  • WP YouTube Lyte:
    • 2 major and 2 minor releases
    • 36507 downloads, now totalling 210285
    • 2015 will see continued improvements and WP YouTube Lyte Power-Ups (you guessed it, extensions for professional & power-users)
  • WP DoNotTrack:
    • 2 minor releases
    • 4312 downloads, now 12009 total
    • 2015 really should see a 1.0 release, which will finally include CSP-enforced protection.

Bye 2014, it was nice knowing ya, but I’m off enjoying 2015 now!