Limeyard

Hi joneiseman, I looked for help from ChatGPT and after a couple of OTT goes and then some tweaking, I finished up with this:

[events_list scope="future" limit="1" order="ASC" format="
<article class='recent-post event-preview'>
  <div class='post-thumbnail'>
    <a href='#_EVENTURL'>#_EVENTIMAGE{medium}</a>
  </div>
  <h3 class='entry-title'><a href='#_EVENTURL'>#_EVENTNAME</a></h3>
  <p class='entry-summary'>#_EVENTEXCERPT{22}</p>
    <div class='post-meta'>
    <span class='event-date'>#_EVENTDATES</span>
    <span class='event-location'>#_LOCATIONNAME</span>
  </div>
</article>
"]

I also had to use a bit of custom CSS, but the result was close to what I wanted.

Thanks again for your responses.

@litetimI have enabled QUIC.cloud and tweaked some settings. The ugly grey placeholders now no longer appear and the front page ‘feels’ faster. As before, some tests show a good result, but others markedly less so. However, PageSpeed is still showing img data-lazyloaded="1".

I note that when editing individual posts (or in this case, events) there is an option to set the header image ‘lazyload images Off’, which is what I do.

Thanks, @litetim. Apologies for the slow response. I have now enabled ccss.

Many thanks, Jon for taking the time to look at this. I have checked the first two items, but cannot find where to “make sure the styling for the “Events list page” is enabled.”

Jeff, Over the last week or two, I have tried so many permutations of Litespeed, no Litespeed, Fastest Cache, Disable Lazy Load, CDN, etc., that I can no longer remember the detailed results. A few broad impressions, though:
CDN has not been helpful
Litespeed was useful overall, even though it inhibits DLL
Results are still very variable
At one point, I decided that it was just the (shared) server that was causing the variability, because the variability is always in the LCP. I am aware that I am using most of my CPU allowance, and this is an issue, resulting in occasional 50* errors. Then I remembered that my host allows free increase of resources for 24 hrs each month. This supposedly takes the account to a cloud-based facility with twice the CPU allocation and other resource improvements. I thought that this would show whether the LCP limitations were a result of stretched resources. There was no improvement.
Curiously, present PageSpeed Insights scores are 83, 84, 97 or 98. Almost never in between.
I think my next move might be to try another cache engine with DLL.

Thanks again for the assistance. An update . . .

Surprisingly (to me), the offending plugin was Litespeed. However, (perhaps unsurprisingly), performance with that deactivated and Disable Lazy Load working, the performance was worse. For now, I have deactivated DLL and reactivated Litespeed and am picking up scores in the mid nineties in spite of image load delays of 1200ms to 1900ms. I shall next try a different cacheing plugin with DLL. Probably WP Fastest Cache which I have used before.

I shall report back.

The troubleshooting guide might be helpful; thanks.