Advanced Sidebar Menu vs Smush – Image Optimization, Compression, Lazy Load, WebP & CDN

Fully automatic sidebar menus. Uses the parent/child relationship of your pages or categories to generate menus based on the current section of your site. Assign a page or category to a parent, and Advanced Sidebar Menu will do the rest for you. Keeps the menu clean and usable. Only related items display, so you don’t have to worry about keeping a custom menu up to date or displaying links to items that don’t belong. Blocks are available to display menus where you need them. Look for the “Advanced Sidebar – Pages” block, or the “Advanced Sidebar – Categories” block. Widgets are also available for page builders or sites using classic widgets. Developed and Supported by OnPoint Plugins. Documentation The official documentation for the plugin may be found here. Demo An interactive demonstration of the generated menu structure may be found here. You may also use the Live Preview to use a playground site to test the plugin. How It Works When your users view a page or category, the Advanced Sidebar Menu plugin will calculate the related content based on what you have selected using the standard WordPress parent selectors. The menu will be different for every page that displays the Advanced Sidebar Blocks because the menu is generated specifically to the current page. Depending on “Pages” block options, the menu will display: The current page. Parent page. Child pages. Grandparent pages. Grandchild pages. First level child pages related to the current item. Depending on “Categories” block options, the menu will display: The current category. Parent category. Child categories. Grandparent categories. Grandchild categories. First level child categories related to the current item. Menu Locations Blocks may be added to: Page/post content. Widget areas. Theme customizer. Site Editor. Really anywhere blocks are supported. Classic widgets are also available for areas like: Elementor. Beaver Builder. Sites that have classic widgets enabled. Features Page and Category menu Gutenberg blocks. Page and Category menu widgets. Option to display or not display the highest level parent page or category. Option to display the menu when there is only the highest level parent. Ability to order pages by (date, title, page order). Exclude pages or categories by entering a comma separated list of ids. Option to always display child pages or categories. Option to select the levels of pages or categories to display when always display child is used. Option to display or not display categories on single posts. Ability to display each single post’s category in a new widget/block or in same list. Page Menu Options Display the highest level parent page. Display menu when there is only the parent page. Order pages by (date, title, page order). Exclude pages. Always display child Pages. Levels of child pages to display when always display child pages is checked. Category Menu Options Display the highest level parent category. Display menu when there is only the parent category. Display categories on single posts. Display each single post’s category in a new widget/block or in same list. Exclude categories. Always display child categories. Levels of Categories to display when always display child categories is checked. Included Language Translations English (en_US). French (fr_FR). German (de_DE). Spanish (es_ES). Developers Developer docs may be found here. Contribute Send pull requests via GitHub Repo Go PRO Our PRO version brings additional functionality to this plugin. Check out the demo to see if the PRO version is useful for you. Navigation menu widget. Navigation menu Gutenberg block. Ability to customize each page or navigation menu item link’s text. Click-and-drag styling for page, category, and navigation menus. Styling options for links including color, background color, size, hover, and font weight. Styling options for different levels of links. Styling options for the current page or category. Styling options for the parent of the current page or category. Blocked styling options including borders, border width, and border colors. Option to choose from 7 bullet styles or no bullets. Accordion menu support for pages, categories, and navigation menus. Accordion icon style and color selection. Accordion option to keep all sections closed until clicked. Accordion option to include highest level parent in accordion. Accordion option to use links for open/close. Ability to exclude a page from all menus using a simple checkbox. Link ordering for the category menus. Number of levels of pages to show when “always display child pages” is not checked. Ability to select and display custom post types. Ability to select and display custom taxonomies. Ability to display category post counts. Exclude pages or categories using intuitive search and select. NEW Option to display only the current page’s parents, grandparents, and children. Option to display child page siblings when on a child page (with or without grandchildren available). Ability to display the menu everywhere the widget area is used (including homepage if applicable). Ability to select the highest level parent page/category. Ability to select which levels of categories assigned posts will display under. Ability to display assigned posts or custom post types under categories or taxonomies. Ability to limit the number of posts or custom post types to display under categories. Support for custom navigation menus from Appearance -> Menus. Ability to display the current navigation menu item’s parents and children only. Option to display the top-level navigation menu items when there are no child items or not viewing a menu item. Priority support with access to members only support area.

Compress images, optimize images, and enable image lazy load automatically with the powerful Smush image optimizer to keep your WordPress site fast, without losing quality. Smush makes it easy to optimize images, compress images, and deliver images faster across your entire WordPress site. This all-in-one image optimizer automatically reduces image file sizes, enables image lazy load, and serves modern formats like WebP and AVIF, all without breaking image quality or adding extra work. Whether you’re running a blog, store, or portfolio, Smush helps you optimize images at scale and keep your site fast with a trusted WordPress image optimizer. Trusted by 1+ Million Sites | 4.8/5 Star Rating Get everything you need to optimize images and speed up your site. Smush works out of the box with no complicated setup – just install and let it handle the rest. Compress images without losing quality Reduce image file size automatically while keeping your images sharp and clear. Smush is an easy-to-use image optimizer which let’s you compress images using both lossless and lossy compression, giving you the best balance of quality and performance without extra work. You can also compress images outside the media library using Directory Smush, making it easy to optimize images stored in theme folders, plugins, or other directories on your server. Lazy load images for faster pages Enable image lazy load across your site so images load only when needed. This image optimizer improves initial page speed and creates a smoother experience for visitors without extra configuration. Serve WebP and AVIF images automatically (PRO) Convert images to WebP and AVIF and serve them automatically to supported browsers. Smush helps you optimize images using next-gen formats to reduce file size and improve load times across your WordPress site. Deliver images faster with an Image CDN (PRO) Serve images through a global image CDN to reduce latency and improve load times for visitors around the world. 119 global CDN servers Up to 500 GB of bandwidth Faster image delivery based on visitor location Improved performance for image-heavy and high-traffic sites Automatically resize and fix image dimensions (PRO) Eliminate common PageSpeed warnings and improve layout stability with automatic image sizing. Smush dynamically resizes images to perfectly fit their containers, regardless of original size, helping fix the “Properly size images” warning in Google PageSpeed Insights. It also automatically adds missing width and height attributes to your images, improving rendering speed and reducing layout shifts. This helps you meet the “Ensure images have explicit width and height” recommendation without any manual work. Optimize your entire site, automatically Smush works across your whole site as a powerful image optimizer to optimize images as you upload them and maintain performance over time without manual work. Optimize images automatically on upload Compress images in bulk or individually Works with your existing media library No need to re-upload images Enable image lazy load across your site Convert images to WebP and AVIF Deliver images with an integrated image CDN Automatically resize and serve correctly sized images Optimize images outside the media library with Directory Smush Built for performance Smush improves page speed and overall performance by reducing image weight and improving how images are delivered. Reduce page load times Improve user experience Better performance for image-heavy pages Supports image lazy load and preload images (PRO) for faster perceived performance Works with your existing setup Smush is built to work with your current WordPress setup, including popular themes, page builders, and plugins. Compatible with Gutenberg, Elementor, WPBakery, and more Works with WooCommerce stores No need to change your workflow Easy to enable and configure Designed to be simple You don’t need to be a performance expert to optimize images with Smush image optimizer. Works out of the box Simple settings when you need them No technical knowledge required Safe to use on any site Why choose Smush? There are plenty of image optimization plugins, but Smush focuses on making it easy to optimize images, compress images, and improve performance without complexity. As a leading WordPress image optimizer, Smush gives you powerful optimization tools without the technical hassle. Trusted by over 1 million WordPress users Built specifically for WordPress Regular updates and improvements Backed by the WPMU DEV team Get started in minutes Install Smush, activate it, and start to compress images, optimize images, and enable image lazy load right away. This easy-to-use image optimizer helps most sites see improvements immediately without changing how they upload or manage images. About Us WPMU DEV is a premium supplier of quality WordPress plugins, services and support. Learn more here: https://wpmudev.com/ Don’t forget to stay up to date on everything WordPress from the Internet’s number one resource: WPMU DEV Blog Hey, one more thing… we hope you enjoy our free offerings as much as we’ve loved making them for you! Contact and Credits Originally written by Alex Dunae at Dialect (dialect.ca, e-mail ‘alex’ at ‘dialect dot ca’), 2008-11.