Powerful Performance Improvements
Increased activity on our forum around the topic of page speed optimization has attracted our attention. As a result, we decided to put our plans on hold and take up Gridbox pages speed optimization. So Ladies and Gentlemen, meet the Joomla website builder Gridbox 2.8.6 with Performance Improvements.
Improving the Gridbox Performance App, we experimented within 2 months. And we're proud to share impressive results with you. Just look at the results of optimizing our Demo site on Google PageSpeed Insights.
Unbelievable? Yep, exactly! Check our site on Google PageSpeed Insights.
All added site speed optimization tools are part of the Gridbox Performance App. Detailed information on how to install Gridbox Apps you'll find in our documentation.
Deferred Loading
One of the biggest Joomla performance improvements in the Gridbox 2.8.6 is the option “Deferred Loading”. Option “Deferred Loading” eliminate render-blocking JavaScript and CSS. As a result, your site will get more highest performance score on Google PageSpeed Insights.
How does the “Deferred Loading” option work? JavaScript and CSS scripts force the web browser to delay loading the page content. So, as a solution all JavaScript and CSS scripts moving to the footer and don’t prevent loading the content.
The option “Deferred Loading” can be enabled in the “Performance” tab of your site settings.
To get the best results, we highly recommend using this option together with minifying source files (JavaScript, CSS and HTML) and page caching.
Converting Images to WebP Automatically
Another Improvement for the Gridbox Performance App is automatic image converting to modern image format WebP.
Since releasing the ability to convert pictures to WebP using Gridbox Photo Editor, during this short period, almost all browsers started supporting WebP image format. Google Chrome, Firefox, Microsoft Edge, Opera and Yandex Browser already supports WebP.
So, we decided to add an option which allows by simple mouse click convert all added pictures on the site automatically to WebP image format. Why not make life easier?
The option “Convert to WebP” can be enabled in the “Performance” tab of your site settings.
Web Safe Fonts in Gridbox
Web Safe Fonts are not a part of Gridbox Performance App. But Web Safe Fonts are an important part of a whole site performance optimization.
What is “Web Safe Fonts”? Web Safe Fonts are fonts that are already pre-installed to most Operating Systems.
That’s mean, font files are loaded from the visitor OS and don’t slow down a web page's loading time. This is the biggest performance benefit of using Web Safe Fonts on your sites instead of external Font libraries like “Google Fonts”.
Like any other fonts, Web Safe Fonts can be added through Gridbox Font Library.
Arial Black
Comic Sans MS
Courier New
Georgia
Helvetica
Impact
Lucida Console
Lucida Sans Unicode
Palatino Linotype
Tahoma
Times New Roman
Trebuchet MS
Verdana
Conclusion
Deferred Loading, automatic picture converting to WebP and Web Safe Fonts are excellent improvements that boost the Gridbox performance score on Google PageSpeed Insights to the top. And our Gridbox Demo site is a living confirmation of this.
Site performance optimization requires attention to details, not enough just enable checkboxes and think that a job is done, no! Very soon, we plan to launch a new "Tips & Tricks" where we want to share our knowledge in this area and show you that even a small icon on the page can bring down your site performance on 20 - 25 points. See Ya!
Changelog
2.8.6 — 01.10.2019
- Deferred Loading
- Automatic Picture Converting to WebP
- Web Safe Fonts
- Possibility to drop library items to mobile menu
- The issue with admin label in the Gridbox Zero App
- The issue with category pagination and plugin “Recent Posts”
- Uploading "Custom Fonts" without titles
- Conflict with “Lazy Load” and “Content Filters” plugin
- The issue with plugin “Content Filter“ and Theme Importing
- Issue with a path to video source files in Gridbox plugins “Content Slider“ and “Slideshow“ on multi-language sites