How to minify js and css using dreamweaver?

[dinu54]

Hello i would like to know whether is it possible to minify js and css using Dreamweaver.

i'm using adobe Dreamweaver cs6

Thank you!

[lnayal · Accepted solution]

Hi dinu54,

Dreamweaver doesn't do anything to minify css and js.

Here are some online tools for minifying CSS and JS.

CSS Minifier - http://www.cssminifier.com/
JS Minifier - http://jscompress.com/

CSS Unminifier - http://mrcoles.com/blog/css-unminify/
JS Unminifier - http://jsbeautifier.org/

[Jony_Green_146]

i find another free online service to minify js  and compress css , you can have a try.

[elugens69]

Just a little update to the original question. I found a link that shows you how to Minify your code in dreamweaver without having to use an external Minifier. You can visit the link below to get step by step instructions on the process. Most minifiers cause problems with code. So, it is best that you test your code to make sure it functions properly.

Link: https://www.sanwebe.com/2012/05/minify-html-codes-using-dreamweaver

Thanks

Stacey Wilson

[B i r n o u]

minify does some more than just removing white space...

[Nancy OShea]

I don't minify my HTML / PHP code as that can lead to problems.  But I do enable GZIP compression in the server's .htaccess file.

https://www.giftofspeed.com/enable-gzip-compression/

Nancy

[B i r n o u]

hello Nancy, I'm curious on the sort of problem that minify can reach... I had just some trouble with Angular, but most minfier propose setting for such context... so what are the sort of trouble that you point at ?... just curious ?

[pziecina]

https://forums.adobe.com/people/B+i+r+n+o+u  wrote

... I had just some trouble with Angular, but most minfier propose setting for such context...

I may be wrong, so i will not try to answer for Nancy, but there are minifiers and then there are minifiers. Some are very much language specific, and using a single minifier for everything can introduce errors into the code at run time.

I found that javascript can be very susceptible to this, and ecma6 more than previous versions. I did not look closely into what caused the errors were, but in my search for an answer i did find reference to this happening with some minified code in a book written by john Reisig, (i think it was the 2nd edition of pro js techniques).

css is also now more susceptible to errors due to the construction of some properties.

Maybe it is how older versions of minifiers are using token replacement in the minifying process causing the errors, and i don't know if all the newer versions have yet been updated to take into account modern code. All i can say to anyone is that they should test their code works thoroughly after it is minified.

[B i r n o u]

personnaly, I'm using different tools based on gulp, grunt, postcss, depending on the project, and the fact of minifying files  (there we talk about CSS, and JS)... are to concat, uglify, remove unusued stuff (function, properties, rules...), and I never encounter trouble whatever the type was... except as I said  with Angular that was expecting some properties and so names can't be uglify...

some trouble in CSS was encounter when removing white space for inlineblock element... but that is a know FOL and workarounds are plenty out there...

[osgood_]

Just for the record I don't minify anything or use any support files. Its not necessary to create or deploy 99% of the websites you will encounter online. The file saving size is marginal, the annoyance of having to unminify minified files to help other developers or work on other devlopers code who have 'disappeared' is a PITA. It's just another buzzy/fade in my opinion along with Sass and Less, Gulp, Grunt, Jade, Jet, Bison, Ricon and the rest, introduced by bored developers who insist on coming up with workflows which make them feel superior to Grandad or Grandma who can whack out a comparable website using a bunch of cheap extensions.

[emmaonfire]

Hello,
I would be very very very careful of using these thirdpary compilers, from apst experience I have tried and only later discovered that it minipulates the code. How is this done......

THe meta tags, it removed all the "" thus later you had other companies contact your clients promising to get their website better listings on google etc for a small set fee.

<meta name=description content= blablabla /><meta content=blabla name=blabla /><meta content=mysitename.co.uk name=mysitename.co.uk/><meta name=keywords content=my keywords /><meta content=www.mysitename.co.uk name=IDENTIFIER-URL/><meta content=www.mysitename.co.uk name=mysitename.co.uk/><meta name=geo.region content=GB /><meta name=geo.placename content=London /><meta content=INDEX,FOLLOW name=ROBOTS/>

When looking at compiled code it is v v v difficult to note the "" are missing, and near overnight your site will drop from Google.

I would far prefer a dreamweaver extension that achieved this rather than relying on a third party that will make note of your site, minipulate it where as visually you will not see a difference in apparence but wow..... it will kill your seo.

cheers

[BenPleysier]

This is a very old discussion. In the meantime Dreamweaver has come with a preprocessor module where the CSS can be compressed.

I know that this relates to SASS/Scss, but, because vanilla CSS with an Scss extension is recognised, you can use it for CSS.

[pziecina]

To add to Bens reply.

The links Inayal provided are the recognised sites for minifying css an js, and the code used by them is used in many ide's that include such features.

They do not 'strip-out' any code that they should not, and using them will not have any detrimental impact on seo.

[Nancy OShea]

I do not manually minify HTML code.  I see no need to.

Instead, I have GZIP compression enabled at the server level.

Enable gzip compression | GTmetrix

[Iamkikiiam]

I am with you on this one. To have a third party minifyer Frankensteining your code would make your website crash. And if there are several files on your website like mine that have Javascript, Jquery or Php to run. Some of these code work with white  space. Good luck in your search.

[ALsp]

Compressing script and CSS files is an utter waste of time. The compulsion to do so comes, in large part from FOG (fear of Google) because Google Pagespeed highly recommends doing it. The savings comes from unrealistic algorithms and compressing a script file will eventually cause problems, as will setting an async attribute, while compressing CSS files is simply annoying. Of course, this all means that Adobe will probably get completely behind it

[B i r n o u]

minifying css can also be the result of changing class name (human readable) like .tableproducts-bodyinformation--inactive being converted in .a, well that also mean to convert the use of this class in all the HTML and the JavaScript....

well that doesn't mean that all the class must be done that way, so exception, must also be allowed... (see angular.js)...

then a lot of CSS can be forgoten in the files, being unused, and should also be removed from there, and so on...

that's why, AND DEPENDING on the project that I'm involved in, I always have nodes tools under hand based on postcss, gulp or grunt... and that marvelously handle the job...

then what's done for CSS is also done for JS, HTML, and others images, SVG and fonts...

as I'm often use Apache web server, I've also set plenty optimisation from there, and not just from client side... I'm in the last process of a free PDF notes concerning those tasks... should be available early 18

[ALsp]

https://forums.adobe.com/people/B+i+r+n+o+u  wrote

as I'm often use Apache web server, I've also set plenty optimisation from there, and not just from client side... I'm in the last process of a free PDF notes concerning those tasks... should be available early 18

Ah. So your pages load in 3.14159265359 seconds as opposed to 3.15 seconds. Maybe. You're a star, Birnou

[B i r n o u]

arf arf... so cool... you're right Al,.... but please don't shout it so loud...

kidding aside, in fact, if we look close on the developer tool network panel, the gain is not only based on a bandwidth gain, but also on a request numbers and painting / rendering time...

that is true that it also depend on the type of content and CSS that you're using, but generally the final gain allow to save 60 to 80 percent (globally an average in between the time to load the kilo and the time to paint the content )

[pziecina]

https://forums.adobe.com/people/B+i+r+n+o+u  wrote

that is true that it also depend on the type of content and CSS that you're using, but generally the final gain allow to save 60 to 80 percent (globally an average in between the time to load the kilo and the time to paint the content )

The problem with minifying anything is that in 95% of cases it is unnecessary.

If the developer was to write their own css and js, then most sites would use 2-3 kb of css and 1kb of js. Instead they rely on frameworks which require 20-30kb of minified css and 80kb of minified jQuery/jQueryUI.

No matter how you look at it, not minifying 3-4kb of custom css and js will load a lot faster than 100+kb of minified css and js code, most of which is never used or even required.

[B i r n o u]

as I said some message ago, minifying is not just removing space... but also removing non necessary request, taking care of optimising images, reducing font (subsettings is one of the major lost of weight that I've encounter in most case that I was involved in), caching and expiration, compressing sometimes gain on bandwith but loose on paintaing time, for large framework (if used) the use, or not, of CDN has sometime to be analysed,... , ..., and so on...

so the question is not as often as you think to gain 2 or 3 ko... and we canno't dress a unique pi-cture (game word for Al) as a general way...

minify should be renamed as optimisation for delivery

[pziecina]

The problem is that most designers and developers are relying on users connection speeds and faster computers to compensate for bloated code.

It would not be too bad if they offered something different from what was the typical layout in 2002, but they do not. Even the requirerment for rwd sites does not explain why we now have sites in Mb's and not kb's.

[B i r n o u]

completly, I 100% agree, some years ago (in 81/82) I've develop the monoply (full and complete) and it took far less than 20ko

but, this does not preclude this, always optimizing code and architecture (even if it is written in a clean and minimal way), helps to distribute faster, and more efficiently, mobile sites with very little bandwidth

anyway, you talk exclusively about code, and you forget what I said about the images, the typo, the requests and so on

[pziecina]

When i talk about code that includes everything, as for the end users computer everything is code, images, text, css... the lot.

[B i r n o u]

so I miss understand what you say by

"...The problem with minifying anything is that in 95% of cases it is unnecessary...."

are we talking about images, font, ???

if one include images... going throught tinyfy (using node is magical) always gain a minimum of 60%... that make the image hero always lighter , and we don't talk of all the gallery, products files and so on... don't you think ???

using font subsetting gain always 30% as a minimum... and here again node halp a lot... don't you think ?

just for starting