Will VirtueMart support Google's AMP project?

[Jens Kirk]

Hi devs :-)

Will VirtueMart support the AMP project from Google?
https://www.ampproject.org/

I have read that Joomla has joined the project - and what about VirtueMart?

[balai]

I think that if joomla adapts it they way the intent, it just needs the generation of some view files in VM or any other component.
Otherwise possibly can be implemented in the template level

[jenkinhill]

The current AMP "standard" does not allow asynchronous javascript or the use of forms in its generated pages, so this would prevent its use for shopping cart such as VM. It is, after all, aimed at fast simple rendering of news type content.  Also each AMP page cached and served from Google's CDN rather than from the original server there could be issues if a form is actually to be incorporated later as the spec evolves. As such its use in Joomla would likely be restricted to com_content, and accomplished by plugins of which so far there is only one available, https://weeblr.com/joomla-accelerated-mobile-pages/wbamp
This plugin is featured here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=75Hzuaiye6A

So I see AMP for shopping sites being used for news about products rather than as a streamlined cart system. That's what I am introducing AMP for.

[Cococoder]

Re-opening this thread as now AMP support asynchronous Javascript: "AMP allows only asynchronous JavaScript."source: https://www.ampproject.org/learn/about-how/
That would be great to have virtuemart supporting AMP!

[Studio 42]

Cocoder, i checked for a customer to implement AMP.
It's really hard and not really usefull to implement AMP correctly.
You have to check for image, video, css, js .... and check that Google cache it and refresh it corretly(eg on changing price)
If you have multiple currencies, this are in the session, google do not work with session.
Currently category use last visited category from session and this is a problem too.
So you can only partial implement AMP, with a poor result(css need to be short) and many work to maintain.
I think that google itself have abandoned the project, only a little team work on it.
Note that you have not many shop that wrote AMP pages(or only categories).
About the speed, it's not true that amp page render faster, it's only true if you have poor templates.

You can try in my shop my test, eg here : https://shop.st42.fr/en/products/amp, this use a plugin only for the shop and need only /amp at end of the URL.

[Cococoder]

Hi @Studio42,

Thanks for taking the time to reply.
If I agree with a lot of what you say, I'd like to bring some more info here: in google webmaster blogpost of the 8th of January, it reads: "The new Search Console is also aimed at helping you implement Search Enhancements such as AMP ..." [source: https://goo.gl/Pg7hZ5]. On the 17th of January without mentioning AMP directly  they posted "Today we’re announcing that starting in July 2018, page speed will be a ranking factor for mobile searches."  [source:https://goo.gl/jTJyxv].
Therefore I'd be interested to read a source indicating that google is dropping the project.

AMP is clearly a response to poorly written code (html/css/js) and has indeed limitations (that's the whole point of AMP it seems). Also.the page load speed may greatly vary depending on the carier, the device and the user location coverage, hence the benefit of a lighter framework.

For this reason it would be good to have the option to implement AMP for e-commerce the same way it is available on other platform.

[Studio 42]

You have plugin for Joomla articles and for wordpress, so only publishing the plugin give you amp pages.
But not many website use it, because you provide a poor (but fast) experience for the user.
If you check about support for dynamic form or javascript, it's not true, amp support iframe only, so SEO benefict is zero for a shop or you need many work.
I thinkyou have more advantage to get a good pagespeed and mobile friendly  website that adding AMP.
When i work on some stupid template that are sold by some compagnies(and even some well know), the webmasters should think about how to do the current site better for desktop and mobile. And not load 800K of javascript and css because they use 5 overides for same css rules or 3 modals and 4 slideshow script loaded by the template.

[webkul]

Hi,

Yes, it supports, please have a look at our AMP, https://store.webkul.com/Joomla-Accelerated-Mobile-Pages.html

AMP, Accelerated Mobile Pages is an application that provides user the functionality to create mobile optimised content instantly loaded everywhere. Using AMP, the webpages load fast across platforms so that content can appear everywhere instantly via any mobile device. With the installation of Joomla Accelerated Mobile Pages add-on, the pages of user’s site will be AMP compatible. This surely will boost the performance rate by decreasing the duration of loading of pages.

[Studio 42]

Nice demo webkul :
-video  is broken
-slideshow not render correctly
-product detials is not AMP
It's exactly the arguments i wrote before. Bad user experiment, so better do a full responsive and light template as using Amp.