WordPress plugin specialist
An update on my long running task to visualise the effect on server performance of changes to my WordPress websites.
Since 2015 I’ve been developing a routine to compare the effect on server response times of the top 12 WordPress plugins. I’m just about ready to publish some results.
OK. so I’ve demonstrated that my iPad can’t display WebP format images, so I’ll have to try the picture tag method as a polyfill.
<picture>
<source srcset="img/awesomeWebPImage.webp" type="image/webp">
<source srcset="img/creakyOldJPEG.jpg" type="image/jpeg">
<img src="img/creakyOldJPEG.jpg" alt="Alt Text!">
</picture>This is the sample HTML copied from CSS Tricks: Using WebP Images.
So let’s try displaying oik-types-banner-772x250.webp to browsers that support it and the JPEG version for those that don’t.
<picture>
<source srcset="https://herbmiller.me/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/oik-types-banner-772x250-45.webp" type="image/webp">
<source srcset="https://herbmiller.me/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/oik-types-banner-772x250-45-1.jpg" type="image/jpeg">
<img src="https://herbmiller.me/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/oik-types-banner-772x250-45-1.jpg" alt="GIMP 45% - 21KB">
</picture>Google’s PageSpeed Insights tells me I can improve the performance of my website’s loading by taking the opportunity to Properly size images. For the home page on oik-plugins.com it reckons it can save 1.2 seconds on mobile, and 0.16 seconds on desktop, were I to serve images that are appropriately-sized to save cellular data and improve load time.
For the oik-types banner image ( which it sees at 74.5KiB ) it suggests there’s a potential saving of 48.8 KiB. ie. It could be reduced to 25.7 KiB.
We’ve tried a range of qualities using Photoshop and GIMP. According to the chart below, using GIMP, I can achieve the image file size reduction by saving the image with a quality of 55%. But it looks like I could get away with 45%.
On oik-plugins.co.uk, where I’d already reduced the image to 70% quality (30 KiB), it reckons I can still save 22.7 KiB on Mobile. I assume that’s if I serve a file that’s already no wider than the user’s device.
It also suggests, Serve images in next-gen formats.
The WordPress Gutenberg project’s plan for internationalization (i18n) and localization (l10n) of Full Site Editing themes (FSE) has not yet been formulated. I’ve written a proposal, entitled Internationalization and localization: translating templates and template parts, raised as Feature request #27402.
I believe that very little needs to be done to Internationalize a file containing Gutenberg blocks and HTML, and that it can be translated and localized into a statically delivered file in the user’s required locale ( language and country ) using the process described in the feature request.
This post briefly discusses some of the challenges of translating rich text content.
Phase 2 of the development of the Gutenberg block editor introduces Full Site Editing ( FSE ). In order to document the 23 new blocks, I felt I had to embrace Full Site Editing and develop my own experimental theme, which I chose to call Fizzie. The requirements of Fizzie are:
I started upgrading to WordPress 5.5 and soon began to experience a load of problems with core functionality. Things that should work no longer worked. I first noticed it on a client’s site when Media Library didn’t display anything.
Media Library not working in WordPress 5.5.
WordPress TRAC Issue #50993
This post summarises my investigations, some of the problems I encountered, the workaround and some notes about what I need to do in the future, which is a work in progress.
As far as team Yoast are concerned the problem should go away if I upgrade to WordPress SEO v14.8.1.
Fixes a bug in WordPress itself where script concatenation was causing JavaScript errors, which in turn led to Yoast SEO malfunctioning. This bug was introduced in WordPress 5.5. We’re fixing it by disabling script concatenation entirely.
from the WordPres SEO v14.8.1 readme.txt file
With their fix being a workaround. Roll on WordPress 5.5.1
The problems that I documented last week were either due to a bug in WordPress or a bug in the Gutenberg plugin. There were two TRAC issues, and the problem had already been reported in Yoast’s GitHub repo.
The problem originally occurred with Gutenberg 8.7.1, WordPress SEO 14.7 and WordPress 5.5.
It appears that Gutenberg 8.8.0 has fixed the problem. There’s no longer a need to apply the patch developed for TRAC ticket #50999, nor, it seems, do I need the Enable jQuery Migrate Helper plugin.
The “what I need to do in the future” part is still a work in progress”. I’ve created a GitHub Project for it.
Today I delivered my first Single Block ( SB ) plugin to wordpress.org. It’s called SB Children block and it’s in the Block Directory.
I’ve written up some notes about the plugin. Suffice it to say there were a few challenges along the way. But I’ve left the details of these in the GitHub issues.
I’ve been looking at how to enable horizontal scrolling on tables created by the [bw_table] shortcode, when the device width is narrow. I want to be able to do it using CSS, without JavaScript. I also want to be able to style the table in the native Gutenberg blocks.
Having looked at a couple of solutions, I believe I’ll be able to achieve it having the table nested in a Group block, and providing the CSS styling using my CSS block.
Today, after many months of procrastination, I’ve implemented a small change to my oik-clone plugin that should significantly improve my publishing process. oik-clone now has the ability to automatically re-clone content with newly added (uncloned) featured images.
The primary purpose is to ensure that the target system has the correct ID for the featured image.
| Original process | New process |
|---|---|
| Create the content. | Same |
| Upload and attach the featured image. | Same |
| View the content. | Same |
| In the output of the [clone] shortcode select the post and the child attachment to clone. Click on clone | Same. |
| Edit the content – check the SEO meta description, correct a typo or something, update the taxonomies then update. | No need to edit. You’re done. |
| View the content again. | |
| Clone the content again. |
Post without a featured image. Note: post ID 50 was extracted from the github shortcode. It’s a red herring I’ve learnt to live with.
Using a plugin called network-privacy you can hide a WordPress Multi Site site so that it’s only accessible to a particular type of user.
You can use this if you want to create a staging / development site within a WordPress Multi Site network.
