Core Performance Team Update: September 2024

Tickets and contributions

The Performance Team works on performance-related tickets in coreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. and holds a fortnightly Bug Scrub on Wednesdays, and a monthly Repo Scrub, also on Wednesday; check https://make.wordpress.org/meetings/ for current time.

Team headlines and updates

The WordPress 6.7 BetaBeta A pre-release of software that is given out to a large group of users to trial under real conditions. Beta versions have gone through alpha testing in-house and are generally fairly close in look, feel and function to the final product; however, design changes often occur as part of the process. 1 release was on October 1, there were 28 Trac tickets related to performance in the release. The WordPress Performance Team has been focusing on a few different enhancements in September, such as adding the “auto” keyword to the sizes attribute for any image that is lazy loaded (details here).

The Performance Team had great representation at WordCampWordCamp WordCamps are casual, locally-organized conferences covering everything related to WordPress. They're one of the places where the WordPress community comes together to teach one another what they’ve learned throughout the year and share the joy. Learn more. US this month, with @adamsilverstein and @flixos90 co-leading the Performance Table at Contributor DayContributor Day Contributor Days are standalone days, frequently held before or after WordCamps but they can also happen at any time. They are events where people get together to work on various areas of https://make.wordpress.org/ There are many teams that people can participate in, each with a different focus. https://2017.us.wordcamp.org/contributor-day/ https://make.wordpress.org/support/handbook/getting-started/getting-started-at-a-contributor-day/.. @swissspidy gave a performance related talk on Client-side media processing in WordPress (see summary). There is also a proposal for joint collaboration between the Performance and Hosting teams being actively discussed (props to @annezazu for kicking off the discussion).

Improving the calculation of image size attributes

Now that the Auto Sizes for Lazy-loaded Images ticket has been added to 6.7, the team will continue to focus on the remaining follow up issues outlined in this Roadmap, starting with accounting for ancestor blocks to make image sizes calculations more accurate. 

Enable client side modern image generation 

Work continues on this project which is being tracked in the overview issue

Enhance the onboarding experience of Performance Lab

The team is now focusing on a series of improvements to the onboarding experience in the Performance Lab pluginPlugin A plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory https://wordpress.org/plugins/ or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party in the overview issue. The Performance Team has been collecting feedback about the onboarding experience of Performance Lab, to inform the prioritization and decision making process for 1032.

Anyone willing to share their feedback is still welcome to participate by activating and testing the Performance Lab plugin and taking the Performance Lab onboarding feedback survey afterwards.

Performance Lab Plugin (and other performance plugins)

Performance Lab plugin updates are released monthly on the third Monday of the month, with the exception of this month. The release has been pushed to September 23, due to our participation in WCUS. 

The August Performance Lab plugin release included: 

Version 3.4.1, on September 23

  • Performance Lab
    • Fix Incorrect use of _n() (1491)
  • Enhanced Responsive Images
    • Move Auto Sizes logic from Enhanced Responsive Images to Image Prioritizer. (1476)
    • Update auto sizes logic in Enhanced Responsive Images plugin to no longer load if already in Core. (1547)
  • Image Placeholders
    • Use more robust HTMLHTML HTML is an acronym for Hyper Text Markup Language. It is a markup language that is used in the development of web pages and websites. TagTag Tag is one of the pre-defined taxonomies in WordPress. Users can add tags to their WordPress posts along with categories. However, while a category may cover a broad range of topics, tags are smaller in scope and focused to specific topics. Think of them as keywords used for topics discussed in a particular post. Processor for Image Placeholders. (1477)
    • Re-remove unneeded phpcsPHP Code Sniffer PHP Code Sniffer, a popular tool for analyzing code quality. The WordPress Coding Standards rely on PHPCS.:ignore. (1231)
    • Update PHPStan to 1.11.5. (1318)
  • Image Prioritizer
    • Move Auto Sizes logic from Enhanced Responsive Images to Image Prioritizer. (1476)
  • Optimization Detective
    • Allow URLURL A specific web address of a website or web page on the Internet, such as a website’s URL www.wordpress.org metric schema to be extended. (1492)
    • Clarify docs around a tag visitor’s boolean return value. (1479)
    • Include UUID with each URL metric. (1489)
    • Introduce get_cursor_move_count() to use instead of get_seek_count() and get_next_token_count(). (1478)
    • Add missing global documentation for delete_all_posts(). (1522)
    • Introduce viewport aspect ratio validation for URL Metrics. (1494)
  • Modern Image Formats
    • Convert uploaded PNG files to AVIF or WebP. (1421)
    • Account for responsive images being disabled when generating a PICTURE element. (1449)

Plugin Check is now integrated into the WordPress.orgWordPress.org The community site where WordPress code is created and shared by the users. This is where you can download the source code for WordPress core, plugins and themes as well as the central location for community conversations and organization. https://wordpress.org/ plugin submission process

Over the course of the last year, the Performance Team has been working closely with the Plugin Review team on improvements to the Plugin Check. This month, there was an official announcement that the Plugin Check has been incorporated into the submission process for all new WordPress plugins! Alongside 2FA, the addition of the Plugin Check to the submission process will promote best practices and reduce the review time for new plugins.

#core-performance, #performance