Hi @memben,
Thank you for your message.
The Smush plugin only considers files from the Media Library. However, our plugin takes into account all files from the /uploads directory. Thanks to which, for example, it also supports files generated by other plugins. It’s a slightly different operating philosophy. 31,000 images is not a lot – their conversion will go very smoothly. What’s more – to see the real result on the home page, all images must be converted.
If you want to check it only on one image, activate the plugin, add the file to the Media Library and this file will be converted automatically. What can you check it yourself on the basis of one file. Also remember that for best results I recommend trying the AVIF format. files converted to AVIF weigh about 50% less than images converted to WebP.
If you have a server configuration error, converting images is not possible. We care about the security of your website, so if the plugin detects a problem, it will not allow you to convert images. Please give me the URL of your website and I will analyze for you how much you will gain by using our plugin.
Best,
Mateusz
Thread Starter
memben
(@memben)
I don’t doubt the performance or results of the plugin. Our question about selective converting has more to do with concerns of adding 31,000 new media files to our hosting environment. (Especially given some of the disk space issues reported by other users.)
Perhaps consider adding this feature to a future release.
@memben Yes it’s true. The plugin generates additional WebP and AVIF files. They are needed so that the images can always work properly and not to modify your original files.
How does the plugin work?
When a browser tries to download an image file, the server checks if it supports the AVIF format (if enabled in the plugin settings). If so, the browser will receive the equivalent of the original image in the AVIF format. If it does not support AVIF, but supports the WebP format, the browser will receive the equivalent of the original image in WebP format. In case the browser does not support either WebP or AVIF, the original image is loaded. This means full support for all browsers.
WebP and AVIF files are saved in a separate directory: /wp-content/uploads-webpc, so you can easily delete them.
Thread Starter
memben
(@memben)
Right – I understand how the plugin works. What I’m saying is that some users may not want to convert *all* images across *all* sites. Hence the need for selective converting.
The plugin already offers the ability to exclude directories. (But in our case, that could require listing hundreds of comma-separated directories.) Maybe it could also offer the ability to include directories.
@memben You would like to see how much the weight of the images on your website will decrease after using the plugin, right? You can do this here by entering your website URL. You will get a summary with a real score for your site.
Thread Starter
memben
(@memben)
No, that is not what we’re trying to accomplish. (We have already done that.) Please see my previous post.
@memben Yes – I saw your proposal and thank you for it. I’m thinking about it. Each additional feature in the plugin has pros and cons.
By adding such a function to the list of files in the media library, additional items have been added there, which will make viewing images for everyone more complicated (currently, it shows statistics of converted images in a separate column). By adding such a function in the Bulk Optimization of Images section, we will increase the complexity of this section – currently there is a list of files to be optimized (in the form of a tree), and making it an option to choose will make it more difficult to use.
I, as the author, have to choose which is better – additional functionality for a small number of users or simplicity for the vast majority of users. How does it look from your perspective?
