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Disabe Emoji Autoload for Faster WordPress Sites
Website speed is critical to the success of any online venture, which is why we’ll discuss how to disable Emoji Autoload in WordPress in this guide. Not only does site speed have a direct impact on user engagement and conversion rates, but it also influences how search engines rank your site. One often overlooked factor affecting website speed, particularly in WordPress, is the Emoji Autoload feature. Let’s delve into this feature and discuss its implications on site performance.
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Emojis, those fun little icons we often use in our digital conversations, are universally supported on almost all devices and browsers. To ensure emojis display correctly across all platforms, WordPress introduced the Emoji Autoload feature in version 4.2. This feature, which is part of the core WordPress functionalities, automatically loads a JavaScript file (wp-emoji-release.min.js) on every page of your WordPress site, impacting the site’s loading speed.
While this ensures a consistent emoji experience across all devices, it also adds an extra HTTP request to your site on every page load. In the world of web performance, each HTTP request can add to your site’s load time. For websites that do not rely heavily on emojis, this feature can slow down the site unnecessarily.
Why You Should Disable Emoji Autoload
Optimizing your WordPress website for speed involves minimizing unnecessary HTTP requests, including those made by features like Emoji Autoload. By disabling the Emoji Autoload feature in WordPress, you eliminate one such HTTP request from every page load, thereby enhancing your website’s speed. Remember, in the speed race, every millisecond counts. As per the HTTP Archive, among the top contributors to page bloat are HTTP requests.
How to Disable Emoji Autoload
Disabling Emoji Autoload is straightforward and involves adding a short code snippet to your theme’s functions.php
file. Remember, before editing any theme files, ensure you have a recent backup of your site and preferably use a child theme to prevent issues when updating your theme.
Here is the code snippet to disable Emoji Autoload:
remove_action('wp_head', 'print_emoji_detection_script', 7); remove_action('wp_print_styles', 'print_emoji_styles');
This code stops the emoji script from loading on your site, thereby eliminating the associated HTTP request.
The code snippet is made up of two functions:
- remove_action(‘wp_head’, ‘print_emoji_detection_script’, 7); – This line tells WordPress to stop printing the emoji detection script into the
<head>
of your website. - remove_action(‘wp_print_styles’, ‘print_emoji_styles’); – This line does the same for the emoji styles, preventing them from being printed on your site.
When adding these two lines to your functions.php
file and saving your changes, you effectively disable the Emoji Autoload feature.
Wrapping Up
Optimizing your WordPress site for speed involves many tweaks and adjustments, and disabling Emoji Autoload is just one of them. It’s a small change that can contribute to a faster, more efficient website, particularly if emojis are not a critical part of your site’s content. After making these adjustments, it’s crucial to assess the impact on your website’s performance. You might consider using a tool like Lighthouse to monitor your website’s page experience.
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How to Limit Post Revisions in WordPress
Optimizing your WordPress workflow often involves tweaking a few settings and functions. One of these features is post revisions. This built-in functionality can be a lifesaver, especially when you want to revert changes or restore an earlier version of a post. However, having an excessive number of revisions can be overwhelming and may clutter your database.
We’ll guide you through the steps to limit post revisions in WordPress, without turning to specific plugins.
Understanding WordPress Post Revisions
Post revisions, a core feature of WordPress, allows you to undo changes and revert to previous versions of your posts or pages. For every draft in progress, WordPress automatically generates a temporary revision (known as an auto-save) every 60 seconds. It supersedes older versions with these new auto-saves.
Alongside auto-saves, WordPress creates permanent revisions each time a user hits save, update, or publish. These permanent revisions are stored in the WordPress database and can be managed from the post-edit screen.
Why Would You Limit Post Revisions?
Limiting post revisions does not necessarily mean you’re capping your site’s performance. WordPress intelligently excludes post revisions from the database calls on the front end, only including them on the post-edit screen or while browsing revisions.
However, having a large number of post revisions can cause your WordPress database to become bulky, and although it won’t affect your site’s performance, it may make you feel a bit disorganized. Keeping your database clean and neat is good practice and can make your backend operations smoother.
The Manual Approach
Now, let’s jump into how you can limit post revisions manually in WordPress without the use of plugins.
Restricting the Number of WordPress Post Revisions
WordPress enables you to control the number of revisions retained for an article. To set a limit, you’ll need to add a specific line of code to your WordPress site’s wp-config.php
file.
define( 'WP_POST_REVISIONS', 7 );
In the above code snippet, replace “7” with the desired number of revisions you wish to store for each post. Remember to save and close the file after making your adjustments.
How to Completely Turn Off WordPress Post Revisions
If your objective is to entirely disable post revisions, WordPress allows for this as well. By incorporating the following line of code into your wp-config.php
file, you can turn off the post revision functionality:
define('WP_POST_REVISIONS', false );
Specifically, this command will deactivate the post revisions feature on your website. However, it’s crucial to understand that WordPress will continue to preserve one auto-save and one browser-stored revision despite this change.
Wrapping Up
Fine-tuning how post revisions are handled in WordPress can lead to a tidier database and a more streamlined content production process. It’s worth noting that manipulating core files requires a basic level of comfort with code or additional guidance. For related WordPress management topics, feel free to check out our guide on managing widgets in your WordPress dashboard.
WordPress Dashboard: Removing Unwanted Widgets
Your website’s command center, the WordPress dashboard, arrives with several widgets that enhance functionality. However, not all of these may be beneficial for every user. As plugins introduce more widgets over time, your dashboard may start to feel crowded and less straightforward to navigate. WordPress offers the ability to remove these unnecessary widgets, either manually or programmatically. We’ll guide you through both of these methods, aiding in decluttering your dashboard and promoting better website management.
Understanding Widgets
Widgets are elements you can include in your WordPress site’s sidebars or other widget-ready areas. WordPress includes default widgets, and plugins may introduce more. All these widgets can be managed through the Appearance » Widgets screen in your WordPress dashboard. However, an excess of unused widgets can lead to a messy widget screen. To make your dashboard more navigable, consider disabling those you don’t need. For an in-depth look at managing widgets, you can explore the WordPress official documentation.
Manual Widget Removal from WordPress Dashboard
For the quick and temporary cleanup of your dashboard, WordPress allows you to hide widgets that you don’t frequently use. Follow these steps to hide widgets:
- Log into your WordPress Dashboard.
- Locate the “Screen Options” button at the top right corner of the screen and click on it.
- Uncheck the boxes beside the widgets you want to hide.
While this method doesn’t eliminate the widgets entirely, it does make them invisible from your view. Other users can still enable these widgets from the Screen Options panel.
Programmatic Widget Removal from WordPress Dashboard
For a more lasting cleanup, WordPress provides a way to get rid of dashboard widgets completely, preventing other users from turning them back on. This involves adding a code snippet to your theme’s functions.php
file or to the site-specific plugin you’re using. Here’s the code snippet:
function clear_dashboard_widgets() { global $wp_meta_boxes; unset($wp_meta_boxes['dashboard']['side']['core']['dashboard_quick_press']); unset($wp_meta_boxes['dashboard']['normal']['core']['dashboard_incoming_links']); unset($wp_meta_boxes['dashboard']['normal']['core']['dashboard_right_now']); unset($wp_meta_boxes['dashboard']['normal']['core']['dashboard_plugins']); unset($wp_meta_boxes['dashboard']['normal']['core']['dashboard_recent_drafts']); unset($wp_meta_boxes['dashboard']['normal']['core']['dashboard_recent_comments']); unset($wp_meta_boxes['dashboard']['side']['core']['dashboard_primary']); unset($wp_meta_boxes['dashboard']['side']['core']['dashboard_secondary']); } add_action('wp_dashboard_setup', 'clear_dashboard_widgets' ); }
The function above targets and removes the widgets listed. If there are certain widgets you wish to retain, simply remove the corresponding line from the code.
To customize this further, you can add the following function to the functions.php file to restrict the dashboard widget removal to only non-admin users:
if (!current_user_can('manage_options')) { add_action('wp_dashboard_setup', 'clear_dashboard_widgets' ); }
Concluding Remarks
Having a neat and organized dashboard is a significant step towards more efficient WordPress management. Discarding unnecessary widgets tailors your dashboard to your exact needs, fostering a more effective and enjoyable user experience.
Aside from decluttering your dashboard, there are other optimization steps you can take to bolster your website’s performance and security. For instance, hiding your WordPress version can contribute to creating a more secure WordPress environment.
We hope these tweaks will help you maintain a clean and efficient dashboard, helping you focus on what truly matters: creating outstanding content.