I haven't noticed this request by anyone else, so I thought I would post it here. My question: Is there any movement within Ignition to include WebP support? I ask, as it is an excellent place to start when reducing load times of pages. I find it particularly handy as it supports both lossless and lossy images with alpha transparency. (unlike having to choose between JPEG and PNG) Also, it quite often will compress images 30% smaller than an equivalent JPEG. (Frequently asked questions | webp | google developers) (Comparative study | webp | google developers)
For those that don't know, WebP is a somewhat new image format that was developed by Google. The initial release of the format was Sept 2010 (12 years ago). As of November 2021, web browsers that support WebP had 96% market share. (WEBP 2023)
Note: Inconvenient spaces placed in the last two links, because of the 2-link policy.
Note: No alpha channel for JPEG, though there seem to be some non-standard encoding around that does.
I think Perspective has much lower hanging fruit w.r.t. page load times than image decoding, but, sure?
You could use webp today with the image component and Phil's blob server module, or webdev. There's no arbitrary restriction on filetypes the image component supports; it's up to the user agent. Our built in image management tool doesn't support it at the moment, but we have some plans to change how file/resource hosting works in projects anyways.
Yes, it is the image management tool that caused me to notice there was no WebP support. Thanks for the suggestion, however I really don't want to use a work-around as future maintenance could be an issue. And, good to know that there are plans to make some changes, hopefully soon.
As for other areas to reduce page load times, I agree. JavaScript and CSS could be streamlined and minimized (if they aren't already). But, within the end-user's realm of control, images are low-hanging fruit. I try to not add too much outside of what is auto-generated from Ignition (again, future maintenance), so I don't know that I can make many changes there. Any tips or suggestions of areas within my control would be appreciated. Also, I would be interested to know of any work going on internally within IA for optimizing load times. Thanks.
WebP support could significantly improve page load times by reducing image sizes without compromising quality. Using a format like WebP with Ignition’s Perspective would be beneficial, especially for mobile or bandwidth-sensitive applications. For optimizing JPEGs or converting images to WebP, tools like JPEG Compressor can be quite helpful in ensuring images are well-compressed without losing quality.