Batch compress all files in a folder with YUI Compressor

Patrick — Mon, 24 May 2010 16:07:51 +0000

I’ve recently read up on the importance of site performance for search engine optimisation (SEO).

Google is saying that this year (2010) it may start using the speed your site loads as a factor in determining where your site shows up in its results list.

One great way of decreasing the load times of your site is to compress the CSS and Javascript.

Before…

After…

There are several methods out there, but Yahoo’s YUI Compressor is supposed to be the best.
The compressor is a java (.jar) file that you need to run from the command prompt or terminal. The biggest flaw in it’s design is that you can only compress one file at a time.

Here comes the solution!

I’ve created a small bash script (.sh) that you can double click to convert all the javascript / css files in a folder (and all folders recursively)

here it is:
#!/bin/sh for file in `find . -name "*.js"` do echo "Compressing $file …" java -jar min.jar --type js -o $file $file done

The file’s pretty self explanatory; it finds all the files ending in .js (you can change this to .css for CSS files) and performs the compress action on each file.

To get this to work, you must make the script executable (download mine at the end of this post) and have the YUI Compressor file in the same directory as the batch.sh script (note that it needs to be called min.jar)

From terminal, you just need to go to the directory with the javascript files in and type
./batch.sh
to run the script.

et voila!

Update – an ever better option

If you put the batch.sh file in your /usr/local/bin folder then you’ll be able to use the command anywhere from within terminal (it must be chmodded a+x) I’ve made a file called ‘yuicompress’ which means, if placed in the /usr/local/bin folder (you need root access) you can type ‘yuicompress’ in terminal to get the command to work!

Type
yuicompress arg
where arg is either ‘css’ or ‘js’ (no quotes) to compress CSS or JavaScript respectively.
The one thing you need to do with this new script is place the min.jar (or compressor.jar as I’ve renamed it) in a global place. I chose ~/Library/Application Support/YUICompressor/compressor.jar

Download the files below and place the yuicompress in /usr/local/bin, and the YUICompress folder in ~/Library/Application Support/YUICompressor/compressor.jar to get this to work from any older on your Mac/Unix box

Downloads:
Script: Batch Convert for YUI Compressor
YUI Compressor: YUI Compressor .jar file
Chmodded yuicompress script & YUICompressor folder:

Preloading images with css

Patrick — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 07:03:02 +0000

The order in which images load when viewing a website fis always a tricky thing to get right. Usually, if you have any sort of javascript gallery for viewing images, these images will load first (as javascript normally loads first). This is always a pain if the main layout images have not yet loaded – you’ll get the javascript gallery appearing with none of the layout images.

There are plenty of solutions out there to set the order of image loading, and most solutions use javascript. Now to me, this is like trying to fight fire with fire; solving the problem of certain javascript images loading first with yet more javascript. But what’s wrong with javascript, surely a little more won’t harm anyone.
Well, javascript means more work for the client’s computer and makes loading times (only a fraction) slower. Also, if you’re not that familiar with javascript, is can be quite daunting to keep adding this.object(); and that.var=10; to your code.

I’ve come up with a far simpler and easier method to solve the problem using only valid CSS and good old HTML.

My trick uses the display:none; style.

What you need to do is add the img tag:

straight after the opening tag. This will be the first thing your browser picks up, meaning it should be the first thing your browser loads (even though it’s not displayed!) Now when the image crops up again later on in the source, it will have already been loaded into the cache and can be displayed instantly.

A simple, valid, cross-browser compliant solution.

Web Design » css

Batch compress all files in a folder with YUI Compressor

Update – an ever better option

Preloading images with css