I’ve created a feature request for Wine Direct to integrate the webp image format (preferably through the <picture> tag) and I’m soliciting votes! Please vote here.
More info: Webp offers consistently smaller file sizes, which means faster site loads. Every major search engine (esp Google) rewards faster website load times. Google pagespeed tests now specifically indicate that png and jpg files should be swapped out for webp in most cases.
Many other CMS offer dynamic webp creation either natively or through plugins. Wine Direct already dynamically resizes user images on upload, I believe if that feature were extended to webp image types (with a png fallback) all Wine Direct websites would benefit.
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That is a great idea.
I’m wondering, though, if it’s not a major undertaking for WineDirect. Last time I checked (which was awhile ago), Webp isn’t supported in Safari (which is a big deal because of mobile), and for them to create a fallback png like you suggest, it would require the CMS to support that.
I could have bad info here, but I believe the CMS is some old open source thing they forked many years ago. It’s the reason it’s so junky and does weird things (like resizes actual image assets if you give it HTML height dimensions). I’m guessing that to pull this off, they’d need to completely upgrade the CMS, which might be a huge project.
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Reasons like this are why I’m convinced that a 3rd party website linked to Vin65 with remote widgets is the way to go.
We’re SO much happier after making that switch with our own website.
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Everyone should put all their images through some sort of optimizer, for sure. I’ve been enjoying this one lately.
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Also available as a Mac app.
I figure there’s no harm in adding it to the Wine Direct team’s list! I’m not a CF developer, but my understanding is it wouldn’t be any more difficult than any other tag mod or image-handling change, and there have been a couple since I started building websites on Wine Direct ~ 8 years ago so I know they’re occasionally possible. 
As an alternative, in case this implementation is too difficult, it might be easier for the WD crew to create an alternate v65 tag to support HTML5’s picture tag (since it offers a fallback mechanism if a png exists/is created). That way it’s opt-in for new sites rather than having to retrofit images everywhere.
I tell all my clients use this.
As a designer/dev, not an end user, I’m often torn on this. On one hand, I prefer clients only need log into a single system and manage from there. On the other, Wine Direct’s CMS is far behind my favs (Craft and Statamic, for now).
I can get pretty much everything done consumer-facing a client could want at this point. (Lots of custom content blocks and tricky editing!) My biggest concern are the load times right now. They make a huge difference for SEO and UX and the lack of control of things like image compression, etc., can be challenging.
We’re on Craft now, and Craft + caching + CDN has made an enormous difference in our loading times. Not to mention the ease of developing custom features, making updates to the site, etc.
I’ve trained a dozen non-technical users at this point, and none have had any issue figuring out Craft’s interface. Not so with the Vin65 CMS.
Wine Direct’s CMS is fine for basic websites, and I’m glad it exists! But for any business that is serious about making online sales a serious part of their business, custom is definitely the way to go.
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Craft is a great choice. We’re just finishing up two wholly native Wine Direct sites now and while I do my best (integrating modern image techniques, minimizing callbacks, etc etc) the speed continues to be an issue.
I’m hoping that Wine Direct’s recent attention to their ecommerce UI is a positive sign of improvements to come CMS-side. I think in terms of holistic winery management they remain competitive but if you work in web you can never stop improving.
ps Ryan Lopez used to be at Peachy says hi! he’s reading over my shoulder while i type at the airport… on our way to unified 
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