Release 6.4.0 Summary

October 12, 2022 

by

 

New options and code updates to improve performance and Core Web Vital metrics. Some of these updates include toggle switches in the admin, to allow the functionality to be turned on/off. Others are code changes only, with no visible change to site admins or end users.

Updates with new settings/toggle in the admin

  • Image Lazy Loading Toggle: A toggle to disable lazy loading has been added to all image blocks, with the exception of the legacy 2U image block. See screenshot.
    Google found that when images above the fold were lazy loaded the site’s LCP scores worsened. We found a few scenarios where the image above the fold was being lazy loaded.
    Please note: moving forward, for any image blocks placed “above the fold”, you should set the lazy loading to “off”. Tickets will be submitted to do this for existing pages. For blog posts that utilize the ‘featured image’ to display at the top of the post, this will automatically have the lazy loading set to off, but if an image is manually added to the top of a blog post, it will need the setting applied manually, like on regular pages.
  • Settings to allow asynchronous loading of Optimizely script on the site level (screenshot) or page level (screenshot).
    Please note: this toggle should only be adjusted if you are instructed in a ticket to do so.
  • Add resource preloading toggle for the Hero background image for the PLP Hero variation to potentially reduce LCP time (see screenshot)
  • Fields to add width and height settings to branding assets. These fields can now be found in the global settings > header/footer for Logo 1, Logo 2, Footer Logo, and Mobile logo. These fields were previously set via CSS styles, but now correspond with html attributes to prevent layout shift.
    Please note: this toggle should only be adjusted if you are instructed in a ticket to do so. We are testing this change before fully rolling out
  • Defer Render Blocking Scripts: a toggle has been added to turn on the ability to defer scripts on a per site basis. Settings can be found in the Global Settings (Options > Settings >General (see screenshot). At this time, the setting can only be used on mini sites or sites where Taxi forms are not in use, since it defers the taxi script.
    Please note: this toggle should only be adjusted if you are instructed in a ticket to do so.
  • Removed greenlight input from form as this field is no longer in use.

Updates with code changes only

  • Fix for issue where Apply CTA link (with external link icon) was causing a layout shift of the header navigation area.
  • Removes rewrite flush used for cookies on legacy airtrain forms. We previously set cookies on old air train forms to handle the authentication with greenlight; this required a rewrite flush which had a negative performance impact. The request removed the code that sets the cookies as the current air train forms now use auth0.
  • Remove preload from ttf version of material icons
  • Enable Text compression on 2u assets (Taxi, Vibram etc.)
  • Removed any reference to unsupported browser scripts

Other

  • For Program Cards, the sponsor tag is now controlled on a program level, not a block level for all cards.