Australcode Uniform Images

Australcode Uniform Images solves the classic WooCommerce catalog problem: product photos with different proportions that the theme crops brutally to align the grid. This plugin makes them uniform without cropping — it adds smart padding over a colored canvas (white by default), optionally trims the uniform background first to normalize inconsistent margins, and delivers each thumbnail in AVIF + WebP + JPEG using the <picture> element.

Key differentiators

• No accidental crops — the entire product fits inside the thumbnail, always. Compare with “smart crop” plugins that guess the subject and sometimes fail on small or asymmetric products.
• Real <picture> markup — multi-source with AVIF + WebP + JPEG fallback. Survives any page cache (LiteSpeed, WP Rocket, Cloudflare APO, W3 Total Cache) because it does not use Vary: Accept. The browser picks the optimal format; the cache serves HTML without negotiation.
• 4-tier quality preset — Maximum / High / Standard / Economy with per-format values calibrated (e.g. Standard = AVIF Q60, WebP Q82, JPEG Q85 — visually indistinguishable from the original at half the size).
• HPOS-ready from day one — declares custom_order_tables and cart_checkout_blocks compatibility without any setup.
• Cloudflare Image Transformations (CIT) — optional integration to serve via Cloudflare edge (/cdn-cgi/image/format=auto) with automatic availability detection on your zone. If CIT is not enabled on your CF plan, the plugin keeps serving local derivatives without breaking anything.

Free (no license required)

• Bulk regenerate with Action Scheduler — async processing resumable after worker death, error classification (oom, missing_original, engine_failed, fs_permission), scope filters (auto = products only based on Settings; all-used = every image referenced in posts/products/Bricks templates/terms).
• Embedded sample test — processes 1-5 images on demand and shows the before/after grid with bytes and % savings. Available on the Settings page (“Quick preview”) and on Bulk regenerate (“Generate sample”).
• Health page with CDN detection — engine diagnostics, encoders, filesystem permissions, detected competing plugins (Smush/EWWW/ShortPixel/Imagify), Cloudflare Polish status (alerts if active — incompatible with the plugin’s AVIF/WebP), Image Prioritizer (Performance Lab) status with automatic detection.
• Basic WP-CLI — 9 commands: wp acimg health, wp acimg stats, wp acimg regenerate, wp acimg derivatives <id>, wp acimg purge-cache, wp acimg restore-originals, wp acimg migrate-from-sir, wp acimg reset. wp acimg doctor requires a license.

Pro (license required)

• Cloudflare Image Transformations (CIT) delivery — emits <img> with CIT URLs (/cdn-cgi/image/format=auto) instead of local derivatives when CIT is enabled on your zone. Defensive automatic fallback to the normal path if CIT is unavailable.
• Media Library audit + cleanup — orphan image detector that understands Bricks Builder (PHP serialize), wp_termmeta, WooCommerce shortcodes, custom meta. Trash mode with typed confirmation, immutable audit log, and an untrash endpoint for rollback.
• Image Health Monitor — weekly cron that scans for missing derivatives, stale derivatives, Cloudflare Polish conflicts, and storage usage. Email digest to the admin only when there are actionable findings.
• AI Alt Text BYOK — alt text generation per attachment via OpenAI Vision (gpt-4o-mini) or Anthropic Vision (claude-haiku-4-5). Bring Your Own Key (no Merchant of Record over AI costs). Context enrichment with WooCommerce product title + category + brand.
• Catalog Watch + Auto-Heal — daily cron that detects ghost derivatives (DB rows without files), orphan files (files without DB rows), products with broken thumbnails. Auto-heal with dry-run preview + strict path validation. Persistent admin notice when there are actionable issues.
• Multi-Site Manager (Agency tier+) — centralized dashboard to monitor up to 25 client sites from a single wp-admin. BYO Application Password, aggregated metrics (derivatives + bytes + issues), automatic hourly sync + ad-hoc. No external services: direct wp-admin ↔ wp-admin communication via native REST.
• CIT Cost Analyzer — daily pull from Cloudflare GraphQL Analytics API. MTD cost + monthly projection + peak day to identify spikes. BYO API token (CF authenticates directly).

Integration with other plugins

• Image Prioritizer / Performance Lab — Australcode Uniform Images detects fetchpriority="high" and propagates correct loading/decoding to the final <picture>. Native LCP optimization.
• Bricks Builder — supports wp_get_attachment_image and optional output buffer rewriter for themes/page builders that bypass that filter.
• WP Rocket / a3 Lazy Load — compatible with data-src/data-sizes lazy loaders (reads both if present).

v1.0 non-goals

• Smart crop — would break the “no cropping” promise. If you need that, this plugin is not for you.
• SaaS-only / phone home — the plugin is 100% local. All optimization happens on your own server.
• JPEG XL — format still immature in browsers. We will reevaluate in 2027.

How it compares

Concern
Smush / ShortPixel / Imagify
Australcode Uniform Images

Product photo cropping
Smart crop (algorithm guesses)
None — pads to a uniform canvas, full product always visible

Modern formats
WebP / AVIF (Pro/paid tiers)
AVIF + WebP + JPEG via <picture> element

Page cache
Vary: Accept (breaks LiteSpeed, WP Rocket, Cloudflare APO)
<picture> element (cache-safe by design)

Pricing model
$5-15/month SaaS subscription
One-time license, no SaaS dependency

WooCommerce-specific
Generic optimizer
Built for product grids — reads wp_get_registered_image_subsizes(), respects WC thumbnail_cropping setting

Processing location
SaaS server (your images leave)
100% local on your server

The other plugins optimize any image. Australcode Uniform Images does one job extremely well: uniform product thumbnails for WooCommerce grids, served cache-safe. If you already have one of the big plugins active, you can run Australcode side-by-side — it only touches images on registered WooCommerce sizes.

External services

This plugin connects to third-party services only when you explicitly enable
the corresponding optional feature. The free, core functionality (uniform
images, AVIF/WebP/JPEG <picture>, bulk regenerate, health) runs 100% on your
own server and contacts no external service.

Lemon Squeezy (license validation — Pro)

When you activate, validate, or deactivate a Pro license, the plugin sends your
license key and your site domain to the Lemon Squeezy License API
(host api.lemonsqueezy.com, path /v1/licenses/). A background cron revalidates
the license roughly every 24 hours. This only happens if you enter a license
key. No data is sent in the free version.

• Terms of Service: https://www.lemonsqueezy.com/terms
• Privacy Policy: https://www.lemonsqueezy.com/privacy

OpenAI / Anthropic (AI Alt Text — Pro, Bring Your Own Key)

If you enable AI Alt Text and provide your own API key, the plugin sends the
image (as a base64 data URI) plus the related WooCommerce product context
(title, category, brand) to the provider you choose, to generate alt text:

• OpenAI Vision (gpt-4o-mini) — host api.openai.com, path /v1/chat/completions
  • Terms: https://openai.com/policies/terms-of-use
  • Privacy: https://openai.com/policies/privacy-policy
• Anthropic Vision (claude-haiku-4-5) — host api.anthropic.com, path /v1/messages
  • Terms: https://www.anthropic.com/legal/consumer-terms
  • Privacy: https://www.anthropic.com/legal/privacy

This runs only when you trigger alt text generation and only with the key you
supply. The plugin is not a Merchant of Record for these AI costs (BYOK).

Cloudflare (Image Transformations + Cost Analyzer — Pro)

If you enable Cloudflare Image Transformations (CIT), image URLs of your own
site are served through Cloudflare’s edge (/cdn-cgi/image/...) so Cloudflare can
transform them on-demand. If you enable the CIT Cost Analyzer, the plugin
queries the Cloudflare GraphQL Analytics API
(host api.cloudflare.com, path /client/v4/graphql) with the API token you provide
and your zone identifier, to report usage and cost. The plugin also performs a
HEAD request to one of your own derivative URLs to detect whether CIT and
Cloudflare Polish are active on your zone (no third-party data is sent in that
detection).

• Terms of Service: https://www.cloudflare.com/terms/
• Privacy Policy: https://www.cloudflare.com/privacypolicy/