TalkJS vs Smush – Image Optimization, Compression, Lazy Load, WebP & CDN

The TalkJS plugin allows you to add user-to-user chat to your marketplace, on-demand app, or social platform. You’ll have it up and running in 5 minutes. It integrates fully with WooCommerce and marketplace/multi-vendor plugins like WCVendors. This plugin offers you shortcodes and template tags for our three basic views: The inbox, the chatbox and the chat pop-up. It also adds a chatbox widget and an inbox-page. TalkJS is the messaging tool for platforms. Add buyer seller chat to your marketplace, on-demand app, or peer-to-peer chat to your social platform. Similar to what Airbnb, Upwork, or LinkedIn are offering in messaging. By providing direct contact between your users, you’re saving on customer support time, increase user interaction and retention. With this plugin, you can add TalkJS to your WordPress installation in just a few clicks and allow your users to chat with each other inside of your website or app right away! NOTE: This plugin is free, but you’ll need a TalkJS subscription to be able to use it in a production environment. TalkJS offers unlimited testing and a 14 day free trial when you go live. For developers If you’re looking to integrate the TalkJS messaging platform to your WordPress site, this is the easiest way to do it. You can use three methods of implementation: Shortcodes Widgets Template tags Shortcodes You can use shortcodes on a post-by-post basis. The following three shortcodes allows you to easily use any TalkJS UI: [talkjs_chat] [talkjs_inbox] [talkjs_popup] You can pass along the default conversation user for the chat and the popup. You do this by adding a user ID to the shortcode: [talkjs_chat user=”2″] If you wish to get the author of the post as your conversation user you can use the following: [talkjs_chat userType=”author”]. You shouldn’t fill in the user ID in this case since it overwrites the userType. With all three you can pass along a custom welcome message like this: [talkjs_chat welcomeMessage=”Hi there!”] For Inbox and Chatbox, you can also customize the width and height of the shortcodes by passing width and height properties like this: [talkjs_chat height=”500px” width=”250px”] There are some predefined styles to make integration easier, if you want full control over the style of the TalkJS UI container, you can pass style property to overwrite the default styles. width and height properties are ignored when style is used. The popup also has an option to keep it open between pages by using the shortcode with the keepOpen property e.g. [talkjs_popup keepOpen=”true”] Widgets There’s currently only one widget available: The TalkJS Chatbox widget. In it you can set a title, a welcome message and the conversation user (the current post author if blank) Template tags You can use template tags if you want to display the chatbox, inbox or popup on certain templates. You use them in your code like so: You can pass along the same attributes as in the shortcode-version. You add them in an array, like this: “Hi there, let\’s chat!”, ‘userType’ => ‘author’ ]); ?> Welcome Message customization You can add custom variables to your welcome message. These variables are available: {{first_name}} -> logged in users’ first name. {{last_name}} -> logged in users’ last name. {{name}} -> logged in users’ full name. Available filters We currently have one filter available for developers. Feel free to contact us if you need any other filters. talkjs_hidden_post_types_for_chat_popup Hide your custom post-type as a viable chat option.

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.