New Release: AMP 1.4.2 on WordPress.com

Following a successful call for testing period and the completion of a series of automated tests, we have deployed AMP 1.4.2 across VIP sites on WordPress.com.

(Note: this update does not apply to sites on the VIP Go platform.)

The AMP plugin has been updated from v0.6.2 to v1.4.2. The 1.4.2 release includes tons of bug fixes and other improvements we think you will enjoy. For a complete list of what has changed, head on over to the GitHub changelog and browse through the release history.

If you have questions or run into issues, please open a support ticket with details and we will be glad to assist.

Call for Testing: AMP 1.4.2 on WordPress.com

AMP 1.4.2 will be deployed across all VIP sites on WordPress.com on Tuesday, February 11, 2020.

(Note: this does not include sites on the VIP Go platform.)

What’s New?

We’re upgrading from v0.6.2 to v1.4.2 and the AMP plugin has seen quite a few changes in between those releases. Here are some highlights:

• Additional rendering modes beyond the original “Reader” experience. You can now opt-in to render your entire site as “AMP-first” and leverage sanitization, CSS Tree Shaking, and various other features that now ship with the plugin. Or you can slowly and incrementally transition over.
• Continued rendering and compatibility improvements for Sanitizers, Embeds, and default elements including support for forms and widgets, better fallback support, and updates to match newer releases of the AMP spec.
• Added support for built-in WordPress.com and Jetpack features like Share buttons and Related Posts.

To learn more, you can browse through the changelog across the various releases.

What do I need to do?

In preparation for the release, we’ve run a series of automated scans and validation checks across VIP sites to verify that AMP pages continue to render as expected and validate correctly. We will be reaching out shortly to individual clients for whom we’ve uncovered potential issues.

To help aid testing in production, you can also load the new version of the AMP plugin for any page on your site by appending ?amp-next=1 to the URL (example). To verify that the new version is loading, you can check the AMP plugin version via the <meta name="generator" tag in the HTML source. You can also append #development=1 to load the browser validator and view validation results via the Developer Console.

We also recommend installing v1.4.2 of the plugin in your local environments and verifying that your AMP pages render as expected. You can use a tool like amphtml-validator to automate some of the testing as well.

If you have questions or run into issues, please open a support ticket with details and we will be happy to assist.

Notice: Change to ASYNC Login behaviour

This notice relates to the following platform: WordPress.com VIP

The default behaviour of the WordPress.com platform can cause a white screen whilst rendering the front-end of a site, as login credentials are verified. To speed this up, we added an asynchronous login feature which, if you wished, you could opt out from.

However, this has caused some technical issues for some clients and, as a result, we have made the decision to make this opt-in. With immediate effect, asynchronous login has therefore been switched off.

What do I need to do?

If you had previously opted-out to asynchronous login with the WPCOM_DISABLE_ASYNC_REMOTE_LOGIN constant, then please remove this as the functionality no longer exists. This is optional, but recommended.

If you experience any issues with render blocking and would like to re-enable asynchronous login then please add the following code to your site…

if ( ! defined( 'WPCOM_ENABLE_ASYNC_REMOTE_LOGIN' ) ) {
    define( 'WPCOM_ENABLE_ASYNC_REMOTE_LOGIN', true );
}

If you have any questions, please open a support ticket and we’ll be happy to assist.

Have questions?

If you have any questions related to this release, please open a support ticket with details and we will be happy to assist.

Notice: Sharing Options to Facebook are Changing

This notice relates to the following platforms: WordPress.com, VIP Go

Facebook announced that starting August 1, 2018, third-party tools can no longer share posts automatically to Facebook Profiles. This affects Publicize, the tool for WordPress.com and Jetpack-powered sites that connects your site to major social media platforms (like Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook).

If a user on your site has connected a Facebook Profile to your site, Publicize will no longer be able to share posts to a Facebook Profile. On the other hand, nothing will change if you have a Facebook Page connected to your site — all your content should still appear directly on Facebook via Publicize. (Not sure what the difference is between a Page and a Profile? Here’s Facebook’s explanation.)

If your site is connected to a Facebook Profile, and would like to followers to continue seeing posts, you have two options:

• Your user can go the manual route: once they publish a new post, copy its URL and share the link in a new Facebook post.
• You can convert the Facebook Profile to a Page.

In the meantime, the Publicize feature of Jetpack and WordPress.com (and social media scheduling tools) will continue to be available to you for posting to Twitter, LinkedIn, and other social media platforms.

If you have any questions, please open a support ticket, and we’ll be happy to help.

AMP 0.6.2 now live on WordPress.com

This notice relates to the following platforms: WordPress.com VIP

Today we rolled out the latest version of the AMP plugin (v0.6.2) across the WordPress.com platform, including VIP sites.

It’s been over two years since the AMP project was first announced and publishers on the VIP platform continue to lead in innovative content publishing using the format.

Version 0.6.2 of the plugin is fully compatible with the previous release (0.5.1) and should not have any impact on custom markup. Among the highlights of the update are:

• Added support for the “page” post type.
• Added ability to enable/disable AMP for specific posts in Publish Metabox
• Reduced Plugin Complexity with new autoloader
• Fixes to Polldaddy and SoundCloud embeds
• and other bug fixes and enhancements

Special thanks to the many community contributions we received for this update, including from Featured Partners like XWP and our friends at Google.

As always, if you encounter any issues or need any help, please get in touch.

Enhanced Feeds Is Being Retired

This notice relates to the following platforms: WordPress.com VIP

First, what is Enhanced Feeds (EF)?

“Enhanced feeds is a setting that allows you to show other items in your feed. You can choose to display categories, tags, sharing and the number of comments.” (#)

This feature has been around a while, and with a low usage rate had become rather dated. As such, it will soon be retired.

It offers 4 options (found in Settings > Reading), enhance feeds with Categories, Tags, Comment Count, and Sharing. Here’s a description of what these options actually do:

• Categories & Tags: EF appends a list of categories and tags below the post content. However, this information is also present as structured data within the feed itself by default. Most feed readers and ingesters will still present the information.
• Comment Count: EF appends this data as an image below the post content. However, again this is available within the feed’s structured data so there is no loss.
• Sharing: EF appends a series of images to the post allowing the user to click and share. The sharing options are not customizable, and include some older networks like Digg and StumbleUpon. Modern feed readers will include a sharing feature with more up-to-date options that the user can customize.

How does this affect you?

For most of you, it will likely have no effect. For many, the feature was never enabled, and for others it was expressly disabled.

If you feel that losing any of these features will be a detriment to your feed, we encourage you to implement them in your theme.

To keep your codebase clean, you can remove any of the following related functions after January 12, 2018:

vip_remove_enhanced_feed_images();
wpcom_vip_disable_enhanced_feeds();
remove_filter( 'add_to_feed', 'wpcom_add_enhanced_feed_output' );
remove_filter( 'the_excerpt_rss', 'add_bug_to_feed', 100 );
remove_filter( 'the_content', 'add_bug_to_feed', 100 );
remove_filter( 'the_content', 'add_to_feed', 90 );
remove_filter( 'the_excerpt', 'add_to_feed', 90 );

AMP 0.5.1 now live on WordPress.com

This notice relates to the following platforms: WordPress.com VIP

Today we rolled out the latest version of the AMP plugin (v0.5.1) across the WordPress.com platform, including VIP sites.

It’s just almost two years since the AMP project was first announced and publishers on the VIP platform continue to lead in innovative content publishing using the format (we’ll have more on this soon on VIP News).

Version 0.5.1 of the plugin is fully compatible with the previous release (0.4.2) and should not have any impact on custom markup. Among the highlights of the update are:

• More spec-compliant markup using a whitelist sanitizer.
• Faster rendering for posts with lots of images.
• New embed handlers for Vimeo, SoundCloud and Pinterest
• and a number of bug fixes.

Special thanks to the many community contributions we received for this update, including from Featured Partners like Alley Interactive and our friends at Google.

As always, if you encounter any issues or need any help, please get in touch.

Now Available: WordPress.com for Google Docs

Today the WordPress.com team released a new add-on that lets you write, edit, and collaborate in Google Docs, then save it as a draft post to any WordPress.com or Jetpack-connected WordPress site. For the many teams that rely on Google Docs in their workflow, this should save a few steps. See the announcement post on WordPress.com for more information, including instructions for getting the add-on for Google Docs.

Responsive images (srcset and sizes) update

Earlier this month we let you know Responsive Images (srcset and sizes) were ready for testing for WordPress.com VIP sites.

Currently by default, the implementation of srcset and sizes is disabled on WordPress.com. To enable it for testing, use:

add_filter( 'wpcom_enable_srcset_and_sizes', '__return_true', 11 );

To explicitly prevent WordPress.com and Photon from adding these attributes, use the same filter:

add_filter( 'wpcom_enable_srcset_and_sizes', '__return_false' );

Tomorrow, this code will be going live for all of WordPress.com, including WordPress.com VIP sites. The return true call to enable the filter will no longer be needed.

If you see any problems with images (missing, skewed, grainy, etc.), this can be turned off by using the filter:

add_filter( 'wpcom_enable_srcset_and_sizes', '__return_false' );

If you encounter any issues, please open a support ticket and we’ll be glad to help.

AMP plugin update: action required

It’s a year since AMP was first introduced: and VIP clients are among the many leading publishers who have embraced the new format. Some have built their own bespoke output templates; but most are using the template which ships with the plugin, either as-is or with modest enhancements.

To mark the anniversary, and reflect the growing visibility of AMP online, we’ve extended the WordPress.com platform’s support for the format. Users now have control over the colors of their AMP output from the AMP Customizer, which can also be extended to support other options. We’ve also added compatibility with some of the newer features added to the AMP spec.

These enhancements required us to make some potentially breaking markup changes.

To protect our clients from unintended consequences, VIP sites hosted on WordPress.com have been set to continue publishing AMP using the original output template.

We will switch all VIPs over to the new template at 1000 Eastern (1400 UTC) on October 25, giving you two weeks to test your customizations, and update if necessary. If you can’t meet this deadline, you can continue to use the old template using this helper function:

if ( function_exists( 'amp_backcompat_use_v03_templates' ) ) {
    amp_backcompat_use_v03_templates();
}

The old template will remain available within the plugin until the end of the year. If you still prefer to continue using it, you should copy it into your theme and load it using a variant of the backcompat function mentioned earlier.

The open source AMP plugin is also being updated with the new features, including the same changes to the markup of the default template. Clients on VIP Go should test any customizations locally before updating live sites. The same helper function can be used to call the original template if required.

Thanks to our partners at 10up and Alley Interactive for their contributions to the development of the plugin since its launch.

Update (2016-10-26): All VIPs using the default template or without the back-compat function have now been switched over to the new template. If you encounter any issues or need anyone help upgrading, please get in touch.