Hello everyone — if you’re in the US like myself, I hope you’ve had a happy Thanksgiving!
Today I am pleased to announce version 4.0 of our WordPress plugin is now released. This features major improvements both to the functionality and design of the plugin.
Chat icon changed
First and foremost, the chat icon has been changed (at long last!). The new icon is a drastic improvement over the older icon, which first shipped in 2017 when Minnit first launched.
“Close Chat” button removed
Rather than having a large banner atop the chat that reads “Close Chat,” the aforementioned chat icon now stays present beneath the chat, and acts as a toggler. Click once to open the chat, click again to dismiss it. This simplified function allows your users to easily have a one-tap button to activate or hide the chat, without having to hunt down for an additional button.
Better performance for SPAs (Single-Page Applications)
For WordPress sites that acted as a Single-Page Application (SPA), the chat script would render on the frontend, look for pages that contain the chat, and then stop running. This worked great for standard WordPress installations, but, if you set it up as a SPA, and placed the chat on a specific page or post, the script might not catch the chat — quite frustrating for users!
Version 4 changes how chatrooms are rendered, by periodically checking for possible chats and populating them with the script. This way, even when the content of your website changes, the chatroom will still be able to populate.
Variety of bug fixes and other minor improvements
We’ve also tackled minor bug fixes and improved the codebase, reducing the frontend file-size to speed up the plugin, and made other minor tweaks to the CSS — including adding a subtle shadow to the site-wide icon’s chat to distinguish it from your website’s content.
Whether you’re on an earlier version of our plugin, or you’re using WordPress but not yet using Minnit, give version 4 of our plugin a try. Head over to minnit.chat/WordPress for more information on our plugin and get started today! Our plugin is a great way to use Minnit — for over a year now, it’s been the best way to get started with using Single Sign-On with Minnit, by seamlessly allowing your users to use their WordPress accounts in the chat.
Jesse