Under The Weather vs WP-Optimize – Cache, Compress images, Minify & Clean database to boost page speed & performance

Under The Weather is a powerful yet simple plugin that displays location-specific weather forecasts on your WordPress site. Featuring a dedicated “Under The Weather Forecast” block to add and customize weather widgets directly in the WordPress editor for a seamless workflow. With performance in mind, Under The Weather uses a server-side caching system (WordPress Transients) to minimize API calls and ensure your site remains fast. Under The Weather is completely “vanilla” on the front-end, meaning it does not rely on jQuery or any other JavaScript frameworks. Built with modern security practices, including input validation, CSRF protection, and optional rate limiting to protect your site and API quota. This plugin is ideal for travel blogs, outdoor activity sites, or any website that needs to display weather conditions for specific locations without the bloat of heavy, multi-dependency plugins. Key Features: Easy Integration: Add weather widgets in the WordPress editor by using a dedicated weather block, an [under_the_weather] shortcode, or by placing a simple with data attributes anywhere on your site. Beautiful Display Options: Designed to look stunning on any site. Choose from 4 different visual options: The Default OpenWeather images A Crisp Weather Icons font 2 Animated SVG icon sets Styled to Match Your Site: Seamlessly fit the widget into any site design using the Light Mode for white and light backgrounds or toggle on the Dark Mode for nicely contrasted text on dark backgrounds. Apply custom hex colors to the “Weather Icons Font” with the Color Picker for a truly bespoke integration. Fully Customizable Layouts: Choose whether the widget’s main focal point highlights the live current conditions or today’s high and low temperatures. Build out the widget to meet your goals, from a compact day-of weather widget to a full weather hub, displaying: Extended forecasts (up to 6 days) “Feels like” temperatures Wind speeds and directions Active weather alerts Sunrise & Sunset Times Visual Performance Report: Monitor your site’s API usage with a bar chart that displays a 7-day history of cached requests versus new calls to the OpenWeather API – a clear look at how the caching system is working to keep your site fast and your API calls low. Smart Caching: All API calls are cached on your server, dramatically reducing calls to the OpenWeather API and speeding up page loads for all users. The plugin includes a configurable cache duration and automatically resets the forecast after midnight in the location’s timezone, ensuring your visitors always see the current day’s weather. Fast Weather Location Lookup: An easy-to-use Coordinate Finder tool located in the settings page and the Block Editor retrieves coordinates by location name worldwide. Generates ready-to-use widget code from the settings page. Automatically fill coordinates in the block editor. Imperial & Metric Units: Display weather in Fahrenheit/mph or Celsius/kph on a per-widget basis. Performance First: Built for Core Web Vitals Page Speed Optimized: Unlike other popular weather plugins that load hundreds of kilobytes of external libraries, Under The Weather is engineered specifically for speed and SEO, using native script deferral, smart font preloading, conditional asset enqueues, and optional async CSS loading. Zero Dependencies: While other weather plugins force your site to load heavy external libraries like jQuery, Vue.js, or Swiper.js just to show a simple forecast, Under The Weather requires exactly 1 script request, written in pure, vanilla JavaScript. This guarantees faster loading and zero risk of library conflicts. Ultra-Lightweight Footprint: At roughly 10 KB, the JavaScript payload is up to 25x smaller than many other weather widgets for WordPress, without sacrificing features. Zero Layout Shift (CLS): Using an intelligent, dynamic skeleton loading UI and modern CSS containment, the widget claims its vertical space immediately, preventing the page from “jumping” when the weather data arrives, and eliminating Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) issues that can negatively impact your Core Web Vitals. Smart Server-Side Caching: API requests to OpenWeather are handled safely by your server, not the visitor’s browser. Data is securely cached using WordPress transients to serve lightning-fast results to your visitors while drastically reducing API calls and protecting your OpenWeather quota. Usage The Under The Weather plugin offers three ways to add a weather forecast: using the block editor or manually placing a or shortcode. Using the Block Editor (Recommended) Open the post or page where you want to display the weather. Click the block inserter icon (+) to add a new block. Search for “Under The Weather Forecast” and add the block. Configure your location using either: Manual entry of coordinates in the block settings sidebar The built-in coordinate finder that searches by location name and fills in the coordinates for you Choose your preferred units (Imperial/Fahrenheit or Metric/Celsius) Publish or update your post – the weather will display automatically! Manual Placement (Classic Editor & Themes) To display the weather widget on a post, page, or in a template file, add a simple element with the class weather-widget and the required data attributes. data-lat: The latitude for the forecast. data-lon: The longitude for the forecast. data-location-name: The city or location name you want to display as the title of the widget. (Beyond its display purpose, the ‘data-location-name’ is also used to create the shared cache key). data-unit (optional): The unit system for temperature and wind speed. Accepts metric or imperial. The default unit is imperial if not provided. Examples: To show the weather for a location in Celsius, you would add data-unit="metric": The plugin’s JavaScript will automatically find this element and populate it with the forecast. Using the Shortcode (Classic Editor & Widgets) You can also display the weather by using the [under_the_weather] shortcode. This is ideal for the Classic Editor, text widgets, or other page builders. Available attributes: lat: (Required) The latitude for the forecast. lon: (Required) The longitude for the forecast. location_name: (Required) The name to display for the location. unit: (Optional) The unit system. Accepts metric or imperial. Defaults to imperial. Example: [under_the_weather lat="48.8566" lon="2.3522" location_name="Paris, France" unit="metric"] Configuration Before you begin, go to openweathermap.org and sign up for an API key and register for the One Call API 3.0 subscription. Paste your API key into the Under the Weather Settings Page. API & Cache Cache Expiration Time: Use the slider to set the maximum time weather data is stored before fetching a new forecast, from 30 minutes to 8 hours. The plugin also features a smart caching system that automatically ensures the cache expires after midnight in the location’s local timezone. This prevents showing a stale forecast from the previous day, regardless of your slider setting. For displaying live conditions (using the Primary Display or Extra Details options), a shorter cache time of 1 or 2 hours is recommended. For displaying only the daily high/low, a longer cache time of 3 or 8 hours effectively reduces API calls. Widget Display & Style Tailor the widget to perfectly match your website’s aesthetic and your users’ needs: Icon & Style Set: Pick the style that suits you best. Choose between four weather icon options: * Recognizable Default images (PNGs) provided by OpenWeather. * Sharp, modern Weather Icons fonts created by Erik Flowers. * Two Animated SVG icon sets (Fill and Outline) by Bas Milius. Note: Selecting the icon font will load an additional small CSS file. Icon Font Color: Use the color picker to customize the “Weather Icons Font” set to match your theme. This setting only has a visible effect when the “Weather Icons Font” style is selected (it does not impact PNGs or SVGs). If left at the default, the icons will use the gray color specified in the plugin’s stylesheet. Widget Mode: The weather widgets are designed to look good on light or dark backgrounds. Select Light Mode when displaying weather widgets on white and light backgrounds. Switch to Dark Mode to display weather widgets on black or dark backgrounds. Primary Display: Select whether the main display of the widget shows the Current live temperature or Today’s Forecast (the high and low for the day). Number of Forecast Days: Adjust the number of days shown in the extended forecast row, from 2 to 6 days. When set to 0 days, the widget’s forecast area disappears, leaving a compact widget showing the current day’s weather. Extra Details: Selecting this option will display ‘Feels Like’ and wind (direction and speed) information beneath the primary display. This setting adds nuance to the current weather conditions display. Sunrise & Sunset: This setting displays the local sunrise and sunset times for the location, useful for planning outdoor activities. Choose to show the times in a 12-hour (e.g., 6:30 AM) or 24-hour (e.g., 18:30) format. Weather Alerts: When enabled, the widget will display any active severe weather alerts (e.g., thunderstorm warnings, flood advisories) issued by official authorities for the specified location. This provides critical, at-a-glance information for your visitors. Display Timestamp: Indicates the time elapsed since the weather data was last updated from the source. This option helps readers see how recently the weather widget obtained its information. Display Unit Symbol: Adds the unit symbol (F or C) next to the main temperature. This option lets you choose whether the widget should include the temperature unit symbol in the primary temperature display. Advanced Settings Enable Cache: You can uncheck this box if you would like to use this plugin without the benefit of caching. Enable Rate Limiting: Check this box to protect your site against excessive API requests from a single IP address. You can set the maximum number of requests per hour (default is 100). This helps prevent malicious traffic from exhausting your API quota. Asset Loading: For the plugin to function correctly, the Load Plugin CSS and Load Plugin JavaScript boxes should normally remain checked. However, you can uncheck them if you prefer to include the plugin’s CSS and JS files as part of your theme’s own optimized assets. If you uncheck Load Plugin JavaScript, you can load the Under The Weather scripts manually on select pages by adding the following template tag to your theme files (e.g., footer.php): For most users, simply leaving these boxes checked is the best way to use the weather widget. Async CSS Loading: Enable this option to reduce render-blocking resources for faster initial page loading. * It is recommended to leave this unchecked if your weather widget is located “above the fold” (near the top of the page) to prevent layout shifting or a flash of unstyled content. * If you enable async loading, please consider adding a “min-height” rule for “.weather-widget” to your theme’s custom CSS to reserve the widget’s vertical space while the stylesheet loads. Example: .weather-widget{min-height:300px} Shimmer While Loading: Enabled by default, this visual placeholder provides layout stability before the weather data arrives. Uncheck this box to instead display a clear, transparent widget area before the weather data arrives. Coordinate Finder Don’t know the latitude and longitude for your desired location? No problem. The Under The Weather plugin will find coordinates for you. In the WordPress Block Editor Add an “Under The Weather Forecast” block to your post or page. Open the Block Settings Click the “Find Coordinates by Name” button. Type in the name of your location. Press “Search.” When search results appear, click on your desired location. The location’s coordinates will be automatically entered into the latitude and longitude settings for the weather forecast. In the Plugin Settings Page Navigate to Settings > Under The Weather and click on the Coordinate Finder tab. Type a location name into the search box (e.g., “Los Angeles, CA”). Click the “Find Coordinates” button. The tool will display the generated with the correct coordinates and location name. Use the “Copy Code” button to copy the ready-to-use widget HTML and paste it into a post, page, or widget. The tool automatically saves a history of your last 5 searches, which persists between sessions. You can easily copy code from previous searches without having to look them up again. Performance Report The Under The Weather plugin includes a Performance Report tab on the settings page (Settings > Under The Weather > Performance Report) to provide clear insight into the plugin’s efficiency and API usage. Average Daily Usage: A daily average pie chart provides a snapshot of how frequently weather data is served from the cache versus making new calls to the OpenWeatherMap One Call API 3.0 (which offers a free tier of 1,000 API calls per day). Last 7 Days of Activity: A 7-day bar chart that displays a more detailed comparison of cached hits versus new calls to the OpenWeather API. This chart includes the current day’s usage, which is not calculated into the daily average. The performance report demonstrates how the caching system reduces external requests and keeps your site fast. Use this report to fine-tune your Cache Expiration Time and observe the impact on your API call rate. The report also includes a status indicator that shows whether the optional Rate Limiting feature is currently active. If rate limiting is enabled and requests are being blocked, the raw data table at the bottom of the report will log these events. This can help you identify unusual traffic patterns or potential misuse of your API key. Credits Weather Data: OpenWeather Weather Icon Font: Weather Icons by Erik Flowers Animated Weather Icons: Meteocons by Bas Milius Geocoding & Map Data: Data © OpenStreetMap contributors Block Icons: Phosphor External Services OpenWeatherMap API: This plugin connects to the OpenWeatherMap API to retrieve weather forecast data. To provide weather information, the following data is sent to the service: Location Coordinates: The latitude and longitude provided in the widget settings are sent to fetch the weather for that specific location. API Key: Your OpenWeatherMap API key is sent to authenticate the request. Here are the links to their terms of service and privacy policy: * Terms of Service: https://openweather.co.uk/storage/app/media/Terms/Openweather_terms_and_conditions_of_sale.pdf * Privacy Policy: https://openweather.co.uk/privacy-policy Nominatim (OpenStreetMap) API: The Coordinate Finder tool sends the location name entered by the administrator to the Nominatim geocoding service to retrieve latitude and longitude coordinates. Here is the link to their privacy policy: * Privacy Policy: https://osmfoundation.org/wiki/Privacy_Policy

MORE THAN A CACHING PLUGIN WP-Optimize is trusted by more than 1 million WordPress website owners to boost performance and reduce page load times to improve your site’s user experiences and SERP rankings in Google. It does this in four clever ways: 1. It caches your site Caching is the process of storing a temporary HTML version of your site on the server so it can be retrieved more quickly for the user. It’s a sure-fire way to ensure web pages load at lightning-fast speed. Turn it on in just one click. 2. It compresses images Large images can really impact page speed load times. WP-Optimize makes it easy to identify and compress images to your preferred lossy / lossless settings in a couple of clicks. 3. It cleans the database Your WordPress database stores everything that you need, plus some things that you don’t. WP-Optimize cleans and optimizes the database to speed up your site and save server resources. 4. It minifies On top of its three main features, WP-Optimize Cache also has the more advanced minification feature. Together with caching, minification dramatically improves performance and page speed load time. 1. CACHE YOUR SITE Turn on caching in just one click: WP-Optimize automatically and optimally configures itself for your WordPress site. Turn it on in one-click or refine its settings if you prefer. More cache features: Cache preloading: This feature emulates a visit to your site, meaning cached files are served straight away, speeding up your site from the very first visit. GZIP Compression: When the server isn’t configured to do so, WP-Optimize delivers HTML, CSS and JS files to the user’s browser as smaller, compressed files, reducing the size of pages and style sheets by up to 90%! Preload key requests: Recommended by Google to improve page speed times. Critical resources (things like font files) get loaded first, so the page loads much faster [Premium]. Use cache settings to: Serve cached content to logged in users: Turn this on if content stays the same for logged in users (or turn on and exclude URLs where content does change e.g. my account areas). Exclude content from cache: Exclude by URL, conditional tags, browser agent strings or list cookies that should prevent caching when set (advanced user settings). Deliver device-specific cache: Serve separate cache files to desktop and mobile devices . This ensures that responsive features e.g. desktop and mobile menus are cached separately and served correctly. User per role cache: Useful if your website delivers different content to different user roles. e.g. an e-commerce site that displays different content to resellers or consumers [Premium]. User specific cache: Serves separate cache files to individual users. Useful for websites with personalised content e.g. Learning management systems [Premium]. Cache purging permissions: Select which user roles are allowed to purge the cache e.g. admin only or perhaps a ‘teacher’ role in an LMS setting only [Premium]. 2. COMPRESS IMAGES Lossy or lossless compression options: Choose between maximum space saving, best image quality or somewhere in-between. WebP conversion: Recommended by Google, WebP can achieve up to 34% smaller file sizes compared to JPEG and up to 26% compared to PNG. Auto-compress: Check a box and every new image you upload will automatically be compressed to your preferred lossy / lossless settings. Bulk compression: Compress every existing image on your site with the press of a button. Restore original: Gone too far? Revert images back to their original in one click. Retain EXIF image data: Check a box to retain EXIF image data during compression. Lazy Load: Webpages load much faster by loading web parts gradually, when they’re needed vs simultaneous loading of everything, all at once [Premium]. Delete orphaned images: Identify and delete unused images from your WordPress website, saving disk space [Premium]. Delete unused image sizes: WordPress creates multiple sizes for every uploaded image causing the uploads folder to become bloated. Scan for image sizes not in use and remove them to save further disk space [Premium]. 3. CLEAN AND OPTIMIZE THE DATABASE Cleans-up database tables, post revisions, auto draft posts, trashed posts, spam, trashed comments and more. Choose what to optimize or it’s one click to clean out the lot. Schedule clean-ups: So you can set and forget. Choose from daily, weekly, fortnightly or monthly. Flexible clean-up schedules: You may wish to optimize database tables more frequently than you remove unapproved comments (for example). Choose the specific time and day when tasks should run [Premium]. Retain a set number of weeks’ data during clean-ups: Just in case you need to retrieve something. Back up before clean-ups: If you delete something you shouldn’t, restore it in a couple of clicks with UpdraftPlus. Power tweak – Turbo boost for WooCommerce: Unique to WP-Optimize, this power tweak boosts performance by replacing a slow query in WooCommerce with two much more efficient queries. E-commerce sites transacting high numbers of orders stand to gain here [Premium]. Power tweak – Boost performance by indexing the postmeta table: This unique power tweak works by allowing the WordPress postmeta table to be indexed, improving performance [Premium]. 4. MINIFY AND COMBINE HTML, CSS AND JAVASCRIPT Minify in just one click: Minifies HTML, JavaScript and CSS. Toggle on or off or customise each one under ‘settings’. Customise minification: Minify only (removing unnecessary code e.g line breaks and white spacing) or minify and merge. Apply the same or different settings to HTML, CSS and JavaScript. Asynchronous loading: Choose non-critical CSS and JavaScript files to load in the background and independently of other resources e.g. analytics or pixel scripts. Loading asynchronously eliminates render blocking and improves page speed. Exclude files from being minified: Specify CSS and JavaScript files to exclude from minification. Optimize fonts: Optimize Font Awesome and Google Fonts. Inline the font files, inherit from CSS settings or load CSS / Javascript asynchronously instead. Preload assets: WP-Optimize visits each web page on your site so the code is minified and preloaded for real life users, right from their very first visit. Preload key requests: Recommended by Google to improve page speed times. Critical resources (things like font files) get loaded first, so the page loads much faster. WHY WP-OPTIMIZE? It’s brought to you by TeamUpdraft, the team behind the world’s most trusted backup, migration and restoration plugin. It’s easy to use. It packs a punch for a free plugin. WP-Optimize brings the best cache and optimization technology together into one single, seamless plugin to make your WordPress site fast, lean and efficient. PREMIUM FEATURES AT A GLANCE Our free version of WP-Optimize Cache is great, but we also have an even more powerful Premium version with extra features that offer the ultimate in freedom and flexibility: Multisite Support: extends database optimisations so they function for multiple WordPress sites at a time. If you manage more than one website, you will need WP-Optimize Cache Premium. Flexibility and Control: gives you the power to optimize select individual tables or a particular combination of tables on one or more WordPress websites, rather than having to optimize all database tables. Deleting unused and unwanted images: removes orphaned images from your WordPress site, plus images of a certain, pre-defined size. Sophisticated Scheduling: offers a wide range of options for scheduling automatic optimization. Specify an exact time and run clean-ups daily, weekly, fortnightly or monthly and perform any number of additional once off optimizations. Seamless Graphical User Interface: for superb clarity in scheduling and managing of multi-site optimizations. WP-CLI support: provides a way to manage optimizations from command-line interface if you have lots of sites Lazy Loading: load only the images and part of a web-page when it is visible to the user so they can see something very quickly. Optimization Preview: gives users the ability to preview, select and remove data and records available for optimization from the database. Preload key requests: preload assets such as web fonts and icon fonts, as recommended by Google PageSpeed Insights. Premium support – caching is one of the most complex things you can do for a website, so premium support offers you peace of mind there’s someone to talk quickly to if you need any technical answers or help configuring the optimizations of cache settings for your website. Translations Translators are welcome to contribute to the plugin. Please use the WordPress translation website.