NEW: Self-learning LCP — a lightweight PerformanceObserver beacon reports the real Largest Contentful Paint element per template; once enough samples are collected the plugin auto-preloads and tags that exact image with fetchpriority=”high”.
NEW: CSS background-image hero support — preloads the measured/manual background image, a blind spot for most performance plugins.
NEW: Visual LCP picker — open the front-end admin bar, click “Pick LCP element”, click your hero, done. Saved as a manual override per template.
NEW: Core Web Vitals before/after report — connect a free Chrome UX Report (CrUX) API key to see real-world LCP, INP, and CLS, with a saved baseline to measure improvement.
NEW: Per-template control table — Auto / Learned-only / Manual-only / Off for every template the plugin has seen.
NEW: PageSpeed audit — run Google Lighthouse on any URL from the admin; see the performance score, LCP, page weight, image-saving opportunities, and Google’s own detected LCP element to confirm correct targeting.
NEW: Oversized-LCP detection — compares the measured LCP image’s real pixels against its displayed size and warns when you’re serving wasted bytes, with a recommended width.
NEW: Loading optimization — forces loading=”eager” on the LCP image and loading=”lazy” on below-fold images so native lazy-loading never delays your hero.
NEW: Slowest-templates leaderboard — measured real-user LCP per template, sorted slowest first, as a built-in to-do list.
Video poster and <picture> heroes are supported as LCP targets via the learned/manual preload.
Configurable sampling rate for the measurement script to keep front-end overhead minimal.
Learned/manual targets supersede the featured-image guess for both preload and the fetchpriority tag.
Added per-context toggles: Single posts & pages, Blog home, Archives, Search results.
Added “First N posts on archives” setting (1–20) — previously hardcoded to first post only.
Added optional <link rel=”preload” as=”image” fetchpriority=”high”> for the featured image on singular pages (strongest LCP signal).
Added AVIF / WebP detection — when a sibling modern-format file exists on disk, additional <link rel=”preload” type=”image/avif|webp”> tags are emitted; browsers pick the supported variant automatically.
Added fetchpriority=”low” for below-fold images (opt-in) as a paired complement to the hero high tag.
Added theme presets (Astra / GeneratePress / Kadence / Divi / Hello Elementor) with auto-detection — excludes theme logo & header classes so the priority budget hits the real hero.
Added Avatar / Gravatar exclusion to keep author avatars from consuming the priority budget.
Added admin-bar debug badge showing total tagged + how many were tagged high.
Added Settings link to plugin action links on the Plugins screen.
Content filter rewritten to use a preg_replace_callback walk so the high/low budget is honored across all images in the content, not only the first.
Cleaner reset logic on each request via template_redirect.
Author display name updated to “Gunjan Jaswal”.
1.2.1
Updated “Tested up to” to WordPress 7.0.
Updated donation link to Ko-fi (https://ko-fi.com/gunjanjaswal).
Removed extraneous GITHUB_DESCRIPTION.md from plugin root for WordPress.org compliance.
1.2.0
Added support for Divi theme and Elementor page builder
Implemented wp_get_attachment_image_attributes filter for broader compatibility
Added content filter fallback to catch custom image implementations
Improved image detection across different theme rendering methods
Enhanced compatibility with themes that bypass standard WordPress image functions
1.1.0
Updated for WordPress 6.9 compatibility
Improved security with nonce verification for AJAX calls
Updated minimum PHP requirement to 7.4
Enhanced code quality and WordPress coding standards compliance
Added proper input sanitization and escaping
Aligns with WordPress 6.9’s frontend performance improvements
