WordPress AMP Plugin 0.6 Beta 1

Summary of the release

The v0.6-beta1 release addresses some of the known core issues with the existing AMP plugin. It also includes enhancements which considerably improve the overall user experience (yes, page support is now in!). For more details, scroll down to the full list of changes.

Call for beta testers

We need your help to test v0.6-beta1; download the pre-release (amp.zip) and take it for a spin. This software is still in development, so we don’t recommend you run it on a production site. Depending on what is discovered through testing, there may or may not be another beta pre-release prior to the final 0.6 release.

Found a bug? Please open an issue on the AMP plugin repository.

List of Changes

Below you will find a complete list of all items included in the v0.6-beta1 release.

1. Support for Pages

Prior to the v0.6-beta1 release Pages were not supported for AMP within the plugin. Going forward users will have the option to enable (or disable) AMP on a per page/post basis. For more, see GitHub Issue #176. Watch this short video to see the new functionality in action:

2. Block AMP on specific pages

In some instances users want to block the AMPlification of certain pages within their site. For example, there may be a situation where a user needs to embed a piece of content that isn’t AMP compatible. Now users can easily specify individual pages that they wish to disable AMP on. GitHub Issue #709 has more details. This video demonstrates how a user is able to disable AMP on a specific page:

3. Merge AMP Customizer with main Customizer

Previously if you wanted to modify the look and feel of AMP you had to do it from a different part of the Customizer that isolated the view to only the AMP settings. A new section has been incorporated into the Customizer to allow users to easily preview how AMP will look from within their site. An additional AMP toggle has been added alongside device types within the Customizer so that a user is able to seamlessly view the AMP version of a page. See GitHub Issue #796 for more information. Within this video you will find a complete demonstration of how the new AMP preview functionality works within the Customizer:

4. Allow Custom Post Types to be enabled via admin

A new page has been created within the Admin panel to manage AMP settings. Specifically, in the v0.6-beta1 release a user will be able to manage Post Type Support, enabling or disabling, depending on the post type. See GitHub Issue #798 for more details. Here is a short video walking through the management of AMP Post Type Support:

5. Add post preview support for AMP

Within the v0.6-beta1 release the “Preview” button within the Publish metabox has been updated to conditionally display as a button group, allowing a user to easily choose to preview the post/page in the AMP version, as well as the non-AMP version. If AMP is not enabled on a page, the button will display as it does prior to the v0.6-beta1 release, only giving the user the option to preview the non-AMP version of the page. GitHub Issue #799 has more details. Watch this short video to see the new preview functionality:

6. Build out list of all Vanilla WordPress “blocks” and their AMP compatibility

There are certain Vanilla WordPress elements that are not currently supported in the existing AMP Plugin. During the v0.6 release a Discovery was conducted to determine which embeds are not supported, or need additional modifications for full-support. These items are to be addressed in the v0.7 release. GitHub Issue #806 has more details. Watch video with breakdown of the outcome of the Discovery.

7. Development and testing setup

This ticket added the wp-dev-lib into the development workflow for the plugin. GitHub Issue #795 has more information. Watch this short video to see the addition of the wp-dev-lib:

8. Update allowed tags according to AMP specification

The changes are addressed by fixing the components/functions of the amp_wp_build.py script. An automation script was built to easily update the AMP HTML tags and attributes. See GitHub Issue #804 for more information. This quick video (which also goes over items addressed in #806) reviews the updates done to fix the amp_wp_build.py script.

9. Add meta tag for identifying AMP pages generated by plugin

Within the v0.6 release the plugin will automatically generate a meta tag, similar to <meta name="generator" content="AMP Plugin v0.6.0" /> for easy identification of AMP pages. GitHub Issue #807 has more information.

Happy testing!