Most of DesignSetGo 2.9 happens behind the scenes. Pages send less code, three security gaps are closed, and some long-standing quirks are fixed. There are new things too, but if you only read one section, read “Before and after you update” at the end. A couple of changes need a minute of your attention.
Pages load less
Icon Button, Icon List, Tabs and Modal Trigger used to send every icon in the library, about 340 of them and roughly 51 KB, to any page that used one icon. Now a page gets only the icons it shows. Icons that arrive later, like the ones in Dynamic Query “Load more” results, are fetched when they’re needed.
The extensions work the same way now. Animations, background video, parallax, hover effects, text reveal and the rest used to ship as one bundle to every page with DesignSetGo content. Each one is its own file, loaded only when a block on the page uses it.
Images got attention too. Dynamic Image serves responsive sizes, so a phone stops downloading the full-size original. Hotspot and Card images get proper dimensions, which stops the page jumping as they load, and a Card’s background image is lazy-loaded instead of always downloading even when it’s far down the page. Countdowns pause in background tabs, and the Slider only listens for drags while you’re actually dragging.
One fix here is less visible and more important: blocks that show up after the page has loaded, through Dynamic Query “Load more”, now start working. A Tabs, Accordion, Slider or Form that first appeared that way used to stay dead until you reloaded the page.
Security
- Public Markdown exports and generated excerpts now respect block visibility. Content you’d hidden from logged-out visitors could show up there. Old caches and exported files are cleared when you update.
- Dynamic Query keeps its refresh templates on the server. Hidden block content no longer appears in the page source.
- Cloudflare Turnstile now blocks submissions it can’t verify. Before, a form with Turnstile switched on would accept anything when the secret key was missing, and let submissions through when Cloudflare couldn’t be reached.
Countdowns that end at the same moment for everyone
The Countdown Timer read its end date in each visitor’s own timezone. A sale set to end at 6pm ended at a different real-world time in every country, and the block’s Timezone setting did nothing at all. Now the countdown uses the block’s Timezone, or your site’s timezone under Settings → General when the block is left on the default.
That’s the right behaviour, but it means some live countdowns will now end at a different time than they did before. More on that below.
Smaller improvements
- Two Dynamic Query blocks on one page no longer filter each other. Ticking a category in one used to filter the other as well.
- More transforms: Details blocks become an Accordion and back, Columns become a Grid and back, and an image Media & Text becomes a Fifty Fifty and back, keeping content and colours.
- Section and Row stopped switching into each other when you changed orientation, which used to throw away most of the block’s settings. Use Transform in the toolbar instead.
- New Maps open on an address search instead of New York, and a map published without a location shows nothing rather than an empty patch of ocean.
- Counter icons, Comparison Table checks, Timeline markers and Star Rating stars follow your theme’s sizes unless you set one on the block. Timeline’s Marker Size also finally applies on the published page.
- Scroll Accordion has an “Add item” button in its toolbar.
- Translations are refreshed in all nine bundled languages, and the Map block is no longer called “Spacing” in every one of them.
Before and after you update
Before you update, check two things. First, look at your live countdowns and your site timezone (Settings → General → Timezone), because countdowns now follow it. A site still on the default UTC will see a “Dec 31, 11:59 pm” countdown end earlier in the Americas than it used to. Second, if any form has Turnstile switched on, make sure both the site key and the secret key are set under DesignSetGo → Settings → Integrations. A Turnstile form with a missing key stops taking submissions.
After you update, purge your page cache and any CDN cache, then open wp-admin once so the plugin can clear its old exports. If you use static Markdown or llms.txt files, regenerate them after that.
Try DesignSetGo 2.9
If 2.9 does its job, you won’t notice much after updating, apart from smaller pages. Do the two checks above first. If something looks wrong afterwards, open a thread on the WordPress.org support forum and I’ll take a look.