Styles settingsAccelerator for WordPress

Styles are separated into two categories:

• Critical

  It must be loaded before main page content to provide correct page rendering.

• Non-critical

  It can be loaded after the main page content.

In most cases, all styles are critical as you can see by default settings. But sometimes particular styles should be tuned individually.

Note. To disable styles processing, the next options should be disabled: all top level’s settings in ‘General‘ and ‘Fonts‘ blocks, ‘Adaptation to screen sizes‘ in ‘Images’ and all CDN items.

General#

• Optimize loading

  Optimizing by inlining according to sub-options. Due to most styles are critical inlining increases page speed by decreasing request count to our server.

  • Inline as source

    Insert style’s body into src attribute instead of change it to style tag.

  • Inline critical
  • Inline non-critical
  • Delay non-critical with non-critical scripts
• Group critical, group non-critical

  Grouping increases page speed by decreasing server request count but not all styles are compatible with such operation. If non-critical auto mode is active then critical grouping is always safe.

  • combine

    Combines styles into one block.

  • don’t combine

    Leaves each style in its own block.

• Separate imports

  Extract and process styles that included in other styles by the @import directive.

• Minify

  Optimizes CSS code to have a smaller size.

• Fix structure

  Correction of incorrectly nested blocks.

Fonts#

• Optimize loading

  Just adds CSS font-display attribute with one of the next values to fonts that postpones their loading and increase page content loading speed:

  • auto

    The font display strategy is defined by the user agent.

  • block

    Gives the font face a short block period and an infinite swap period.

  • swap (default)

    Gives the font face an extremely small block period and an infinite swap period.

  • fallback

    Gives the font face an extremely small block period and a short swap period.

  • optional

    Gives the font face an extremely small block period and no swap period.

  Also, font names can be specified: empty (for all names), font name part or regular expression.

• Separate from critical styles

  On some sites browser might incorrect render postponed fonts that declared in separate CSS file. It can be fixed by disabling this option.

  • Group

    Grouping increases page speed by decreasing server request count but not all styles are compatible with such operation. Combining is the same as for the main styles.

• Deinline equal or larger

  Deinlines large fonts from CSS to decrease size.

• Inline critical

  Inserts the bodies of the fonts specified in the list to load them as quickly as possible. Usually needed when there is CLS due to font loading. Regular expressions are allowed. Examples additions: Helvetica Neue, @^Helvetica@, family:Helvetica Neue & weight:700, family:@^Helvetica@ & weight:@[4-7]00@ & style:italic.

Non-critical#

• Automatically

  Non-critical styles part will be automatically separated from critical ones. Also, specified CSS selectors can be excluded to be part of critical styles.

• Manual
  • Inlined

    Includes all inline styles.

  • Internal

    Includes all internal (self-hosted, hosted on our site) styles.

  • External

    Includes all external (hosted on the other sites) styles.

  • Exclude

    Styles with URLs, IDs, or bodies matching the specified regular expressions will be treated as critical. It can be added multiple expressions at once by placing each on new line.

  • Include only

    Only styles with URLs, IDs, or bodies matching the specified regular expressions will be treated as non-critical. It can be added multiple expressions at once by placing each on new line.

Not needed#

Styles with URLs, IDs, or bodies matching the specified regular expressions will not be loaded. It can be added multiple expressions at once by placing each on new line.

Corrections for lazy loading scripts#

On some sites layout is depended on scripts. So when scripts loading are delayed, then there may be necessary to adjust layout. It’s a section for defining various styles to correct layout loading before main scripts loading. There are some already predefined elements related to particular site components, that can be used as a samples.

This styles are added to particular page only if scripts delayed loading is enabled, and page is not for AMP.

It’s a list of styles that will be added to the site by defined order. Each item has next options:

• Enable

  It allows to disable item instead of deleting it.

• Optional description to identify

  Allows to recognize the goal of specified styles. E.g. what particular problem it solves.

• Style code

  The style code. Special body’s class can be used in selectors to control styles’ scope:

  • seraph-accel-js-lzl-ing

    This class is removed from body tag when non-critical scripts has been loaded and first click delay is elapsed. So, it allows to apply styles only in scripts loading period plus enough time for their initialization.

  • seraph-accel-js-lzl-ing-ani

    See below about animation corrections.

  • seraph-accel-view-XXX

    This class is added to the body tag when views are active. So, it allows to apply styles only in particular view, e.g. on mobiles only. XXX can be cmn (means common view, desktop) or particular slug like mobile from the defined views.

Animation corrections#

There is a special class of body named .seraph-accel-js-lzl-ing-ani. It is added just after full content (DOM) is loaded and removed after specified time after loading of a delayed non-critical scripts. It allows to relay on that while creating correction styles.

Let’s take an example with Elementor. Some of its elements have an initial style .elementor-invisible, when removed, the element appears smoothly on the screen. Because if this style is removed when non-critical scripts are running, then the appearance of the element occurs with a delay. To fix this, we can make an adjustment style like this:

.elementor-invisible {
visibility: visible !important;
}

But in this case, we determine its visibility for the entire time the page is opened. This may conflict with logic in scripts. Those, we need to make it active only at the initial display, until non-critical scripts are loaded. That’s why let’s do so:

body.seraph-accel-js-lzl-ing .elementor-invisible {
visibility: visible !important;
}

Now everything seems to be fine. But if an animation is tied to removing this class, then it will not work, because class .seraph-accel-js-lzl-ing on the body tag added immediately. And this is where the class helps .seraph-accel-js-lzl-ing-ani, because it is not added immediately, but only after the entire page is loaded and the animation will be applied, because the corresponding elements will have their styles changed, which are included in the animation. Therefore, we will correct so:

body.seraph-accel-js-lzl-ing-ani .elementor-invisible {
visibility: visible !important;
}

The duration of the class deletion delay .seraph-accel-js-lzl-ing-ani set to prevent double application of animation styles so that, for example, the element does not disappear and appears again after loading non-critical scripts. Those, during this time, the main scripts should execute their animation logic, which is already redefined by us.

Note. In rare cases to completely disable styles processing all top level checkboxes (in the first two sections), CDN settings and images’ adaptation to screen sizes should be disabled.