Widget Options for WordPress is a must-have plugin for you to have more control over your widgets. It’ll make it easy for you to manage widget’s visibility and even provides customisations. As user grows we are continually striving to make the plugin better, and we are very happy to announce the latest version release and update with drastic performance improvements.
Better. Faster. Easier.
The highlight of this update is the faster loading time. Here’s the comparison with the previous version with a clean WordPress installation when managing widgets on wp-admin/widget.php admin page. Both free and extended versions have huge improvement based on the Query Monitor Plugin after removing unnecessary query calls and better global variables initialization.
Free version speed comparison.
Extended version speed comparison.
Having this much difference sets this plugin apart! Specially when you have a lot of widgets, the spike on loading speed is truly amazing!
That’s not all, we’ve also removed unnecessary calls on the front-end for the extra loading time added by the plugin! Below are the front-end comparison:
I have really enjoyed updating the plugin coding pattern and doing research on how to make the plugin better and faster. I hope you enjoy these updates, too! But that’s not all, I’ve added a new feature on the extended version to make you happier! 🙂
Brand New Feature: Widget Output Caching Option
Extended Widget Options now has widget output caching option for faster widget display. This feature is utilising Transient API to store widget contents in which you can set the expiration date on the settings page. This will be of great advantage for those who are using widgets with third-party services calls like Twitter, Instagram, and other services. WP_Query relying widgets, like Recent Post, Recent Comments, Pages, Featured Contents, and several other widgets will also benefit! Instead of querying them every time, Widget Cache option will serve cached content. If you don’t need several widgets to be cached, option is also added on each widget. Complete control will always be in your hands. To check more about this brand new feature click here.
Alongside the improvements and new feature, several fixes are also included on the update, especially on the Extended Widget Options. You can download the update automatically by going to Plugins > Installed Plugins, and under both plugin versions, you’ll have update notification.