WordPress AMP Plugin 0.7 Beta 1

Summary of the release

On the heels of the 0.6 AMP plugin release, we’re now testing v0.7-beta1 which continues to address user-reported issues.

Early implementations of AMP on WordPress (in both this plugin and others) were focused on offering a foundation to build off of; development teams could use the plugin and customize their site experience to meet their needs. This did its job well and allowed the plugin to meet the needs of a variety of websites.

However, while that initial focus offered development teams a working solution, it was limited in its scope and didn’t offer an ideal user experience for smaller teams, which includes non-technical website managers, to be able to customize the experience of AMP for their visitors.

With the 0.6 and 0.7 releases, we’ve focused on how to empower content creators with a user-focused approach to AMP on WordPress. Admins and site owners now have an incredible amount of control around testing, activating and leveraging AMP, including lots of out-of-the-box support for embeds and widgets.

This release also includes enhancements which considerably improve the overall user experience: The ability for WordPress themes to have an all-AMP experience with AMP Canonical requirements in mind.

For more details on the v0.7-beta1 release, scroll down to the full list of changes. To see this plugin on a live site, including the AMP Canonical experience in full effect, check out the AMP Conf Theme demo site. (Further details regarding our AMP Conf theme, built to demo AMP Canonical features, can be found in our AMP Conf Theme Repo.)

Call for beta testers

We need your help to test the next version of the AMP plugin v0.7-beta1; download the pre-release (amp.zip) and take it for a spin. While we want you to take it for a spin, this software is still in development, so we don’t recommend you run it on a production site.

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 v0.7-beta1 release.

1. Support for AMP Canonical mode

0.7 enables themes to opt-in to canonical AMP. Normally, the plugin is in “paired mode,” with an AMP version of a page, and a standard WordPress version. But with canonical AMP, there’s only a native AMP version of each page. This allows themes to create an entire site in AMP. In the event that there is a component disabling canonical AMP, “paired mode” will be activated.

For more details see GitHub Issues #848 and #849. Watch this short video to see the new functionality in action.

2. Support for default widgets

As of the 0.7 release all Vanilla Instance widgets will be supported within AMP. There are 15 widgets deemed to be “Vanilla Instance widgets” including: Archives with and without ‘dropdown’, Audio, Calendar, Categories with and without ‘dropdown’, Custom HTML, Gallery, Image, Meta, Nav Menu, Pages, Recent Comments, RSS and Video. Of the 15, only 7 were supported prior to 0.7. Now Archives with  ‘dropdown, Audio, Categories with ‘dropdown’, Gallery, Image, Recent Comments, RSS and Video widgets are all AMP compatible.

GitHub Issues #839 and #864 can be reviewed for a comprehensive look at the supported default widgets. Watch this video to see the new widget support in action.

3. Support for default embeds

AMP support has been added for most default WordPress embeds in the 0.7 release. The following is a list of embeds that with this release are fully AMP compatible: Issuu Embed, Post Embed, Meetup Embed, Reddit Embed, Screencast Embed, Tumblr Embed and WordPress Plugin Directory Embed.

GitHub Issue #841 outlines the details of the supported embeds. Watch this short video to see the supported embed functionality.

4. Support for commenting

Native WordPress commenting is now fully supported in AMP. This means all your necessary commenting needs, from the display of existing comments to the creation of new comments, can be easily added, and utilized, within your site.

For details please view GitHub Issues #797 and #862. This video demonstrates the newly supported commenting feature.

5. Creation of AMP-related notifications

Notifications of potential incompatibilities, as well as information regarding performance optimization have been added with 0.7. When creating/editing a post if there’s content that’s invalid AMP, you will be notified regarding the validation failure.

See GitHub Issues #843 for more information. Check out this video where you can see the new notifications displaying in the authorship flow.

6. Outputting Valid AMP

With v0.7-beta1, there’s a better way to render an entire page as valid AMP. Additionally in this release WordPress is prevented from printing scripts/styles in the header and footer.

For more details please check out GitHub Issue #875 and #866. Watch this short video to see the new functionality in action.

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For a comprehensive look at all changes made and issues that were resolved during the v0.7-beta1 development please visit the GitHub repo. 

Happy testing!