Today LightSpeed released version 2.5.0 of our LSX theme. Focus was on speed optimisation and structured data for this release.
Speed Optimisation Updates
LightSpeed’s WordPress LSX theme has been updated for speed optimisation. With mobile forming the majority of web users these days speed is key for keeping the customer on your website.
Speed Optimisation Release Notes
- Image Optimisation (via srcset tags)
- Displaying specific sized images at specific breakpoints in the CSS for different devices.
- Image Optimisation – Removed lazy loading from the theme
Recommended Lazy loading plugin for LSX theme – https://wordpress.org/plugins/native-lazyload/ - All of our carousels using Slick slider also uses lazy loading, but that is via the slick.js library. https://kenwheeler.github.io/slick/
- Optimise Font loading (splitting up the font declarations, and preloading)
Google fonts are included in the theme to prevent external calls when loading fonts. - Put all of the CSS Fonts declarations together in a CSS file, and added the “preload” tag for that. (Google Fonts and Fontawesome)
- Script Defer (defer all script to load once the page has rendered)</ul></p>
Structured Data Updates
Yoast SEO adds structured data to your WordPress site when installed. JSON script is added to the LSX Team and LSX Testimonials plugins and passed to the Yoast plugin using Yoast SEO Schema API to add structured data support for these post types.
LSX Team 1.2
LSX Team 1.2.0 Schema nodes added:
jobTitle ( the role taxonomy)worksFor (Yoast Organization Fields)memberOf (Yoast Organization Fields)email (custom field)telephone (custom field)connections (connected projects and testimonials)
LSX Testimonials 1.2
LSX Testimonials 1.2.0 Schema nodes added:
headline ( post title )reviewBody (content / excerpt)author (reviewer name and email address custom fields)
LSX Search 1.3 Major Release
A significant upgrade in this release introduces collapsible filters in the sidebar on global search results.
Release notes:
*Dev - Improving search styles. (spacing, background colors, filter options)
*Dev - Adding filter number to search results on mobile.
*Dev - Adding search bar to mobile.
*Dev - Cosmetic improvements to Search (spacing, background colors, filter options, labels)
*Dev - Making the layout for search independent from the archive layouts.
*Dev - Adding collapsible facets option.
*Fix - Restricted the post type labels to the global search only.
*Fix - Improving footer bar.
LSX Mega Menus 1.2.1 Major Release
The following enhancements to the mega menu configuration were made.
- Widget titles can be added as links now.
- Added the ability to make the mega menu full width.
Additionally, LightSpeed is using GitHub Actions to push GitHub releases automatically to the WordPress Plugin Repository, and we needed to add a script that excluded unnecessary files from being deployed there.
Release notes:
* Dev - Adding full width style when option is active.
* Dev - Added in a shortcode option to link the widget titles.
* Dev - Adding the .gitattributes file to remove unnecessary files from the WordPress version.LSX Currencies 1.2 Initial Release
Tour Operator Compatibility
LSX Currencies works with both the LSX theme and the Tour Operator plugins.
* Important to note that when using the Tour Operator Plugin, the settings are located in Tour Operator settings and not in the Theme Options.
Prices can be set per currency in the backend on Tours. So this means when using the currency switcher in the frontend you will display preselected prices. This is not enabled for WooCommerce currently
Option to disable the switcher on the frontend and convert prices to a base currency in the backend. Allows you to enter the price in USD for examples, but all prices will display in the base currency that is set in the backend.
LSX / WooCommerce Compatibility
Full circle WooCommerce 3.7 compatibility testing was conducted to test price conversion for products.
Release Notes:
* Dev - Code Standards updates
* Dev - Added in a fallback API for exchange rates.
* Dev - Namespacing and instances for all classes.
* Dev - Added in an option to convert all multiple currencies to your base currency on the frontend.
* Dev - Added in a shortcode - [lsx_currency_value value="500"]
* Dev - Added in the option to strip the decimal places from the values.
* Dev - Allowing the base currency to be overwritten by the WooCommerce currency if the plugin is active.
