Documentation

Setup & everyday use.

Everything below reflects the current release (v1.1.0). From install to a fully attributed, weighed site is typically under ten minutes.

Before you start

You need WordPress 6.0+ on PHP 7.4+, an administrator login, and the plugin zip plus licence key from your purchase email. Scans run against the live site with nothing added to the front end and nothing changed for visitors. One honest note before you begin: the weights cover the CSS and JS your install enqueues, and the likely-unused flags are heuristics with stated reasons — verify them in the preview before you act.

Setup, step by step

  1. Install the plugin

    Go to Plugins → Add New → Upload Plugin, choose the zip from your purchase email, install and activate. It adds an Asset Radar item to the admin menu. Nothing is added to the front end of the site — the plugin only acts there when you apply a Pro dequeue rule.

  2. Enter your licence key

    Open Asset Radar → Licence and paste the key from your purchase email into the licence box — it's a long code starting VPC1., so paste the whole thing into the textarea rather than typing it. Keys are domain-based — no account, no phoning home.

  3. Run your first scan

    Press Scan site. The scanner walks your pages one at a time and captures every CSS and JS file WordPress enqueues on each — using signed scan requests only you trigger, so visitors never start one and normal page loads carry no scanning code. A typical site is done in a few minutes.

  4. Read the attribution

    Each page shows its file list with three columns that matter: the file, its weight, and its owner — the plugin or theme it was traced back to. The owner league table ranks everyone by the weight they load, worst first. Assets loaded from external CDNs appear with their owner but no weight — we won't invent a number for a file that isn't on your server.

  5. Act on the flags

    Files loaded where they're probably unused are flagged, each with its reason — form-plugin CSS on a page with no form, gallery JS with no gallery markup. Every flag now explains what its assets are and shows what depends on them, with an extra caution on page-builder owners like Elementor whose usage isn't visible in the page content — so you judge before you act. In Pro, a Disable button turns any flag into a correctly-scoped rule in one click. Treat flags as leads, not verdicts: check the reason, verify in the rules preview, then apply. The scorecard and the trend across scans show your progress between scans.

  6. Build rules and generate the report (Pro)

    Turn a flag into a per-page dequeue rule: preview the page without the file in your admin session, let the dependency guard check nothing relies on it, then apply — front end only, one-click undo armed. Under Report branding, add your agency logo, name and colours and generate the page-weight report — print-ready HTML and a downloadable PDF with the weight table, the league table, the flags, the savings estimate and the before/after trend.

Everyday use

The screens and safeguards you'll actually live with.

How attribution works

Plugins and themes register their assets through the WordPress enqueue system, and every registered file carries the path it lives at. The scanner records each page's asset list as WordPress assembles it and traces each file to its owning plugin or theme directory. Owners come from where the file lives, not from guessing at URLs.

What gets weighed — and what doesn't

Weights are the real file sizes of the CSS and JS your install enqueues, page by page. External CDN assets are listed with their owner but not weighed. Images, fonts and server response times are a different job — pair Asset Radar with a waterfall tool when those are the suspects.

The flag heuristics

Each flag pairs an asset with evidence of absence on that page: no form markup for the form plugin's CSS, no gallery for the lightbox JS, a file enqueued site-wide but tied to a feature used on one page. Every flag states its reason, and flags are to verify, not certainties — that's what the preview is for.

The scorecard and the trend

Every scan rolls up into a site scorecard — total weight, heaviest pages, heaviest owners, flagged waste. Scans stack into a trend over time, so the update that quietly added 600 KB shows up as a step in the line, and the month your rules went live shows up as a drop.

Dequeue rules and the dependency guard (Pro)

A rule stops a chosen file loading on chosen pages — front end only, never the admin. Before a rule goes live for visitors, it previews in your admin session so you see the page without the file while the public site is untouched, and the dependency guard blocks removing anything another enqueued asset declares it needs.

One-click undo & the change log

Every rule keeps its undo next to it. Click it and the asset loads again exactly as before — no state is destroyed, nothing to reconstruct. Rules are stored settings, not file edits, so deactivating the plugin also restores every asset. A dated Change report screen lists every rule you add, disable or undo, with who did it and a one-click undo on each entry.

The before / after speed test (Pro)

Pick a page and run it: the plugin loads that page twice — stock, then with your enabled rules applied — and reports the exact CSS/JS requests and kilobytes removed. It runs on your server as two loopback requests, so visitors are never affected, and the measured result flows into the branded report and PDF. Requests and kilobytes are exact; the response-time sample is a rough guide, not a Lighthouse score.

The page-weight report (Pro)

The headline before/after number at the top, the per-page weight table and owner league table in the middle, the flagged assets with reasons and the savings estimate at the bottom, your branding throughout. Print-ready HTML and a real downloadable PDF — attach it to the performance-retainer proposal.

The licence screen

One textarea, one Activate button. Paste the full VPC1.… key from your purchase email. The key covers the number of sites on your plan; move a site by deactivating on one and activating on another. On multisite, everything is scoped per site.

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