minimonster

Nodejs css/js minification middleware for connect/express with in-memory caching support

minimonster was created because I needed a css/js minification middleware for my express stack that had the following requirements:

• minify BOTH css and js files
• switch between different minification frameworks out there (google closure, yui, uglify, swish)
• add in memory support so minified css and js could be served from memory instead of hitting the disk every time (recommended for high performance production environments)
• graceful degredation on any type of failure and let express.static() serve as a fallback
• module could be used as an object outside of middleware (express/connect) environment

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Installation

npm install minimonster

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Pull requests welcome!

If you find any bugs, please help me fix them! Thanks.

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Using minimonster as middleware

You can just drop minimonster into your express middleware stack. The minimum you need is the src option, which is the path to the directory containing all your public css and js files.

var minimonster = require('minimonster').middleware;

app.use(minimonster.minify({ 
    src: __dirname + '/public'
}));

Important

If you are using minimonster as middleware in an express/connect app. Make sure that minimonster is above the express.static() middleware

example:

app.use(express.compress());

// minimonster needs to comes before express.static in the middleware stack or it will never work!!!
app.use(minimonster.minify({ 
    src: __dirname + '/public'
}));

// express.static will service as a fallback in case minimonster cannot serve the request for whatever reason
app.use(express.static(__dirname + '/public', { maxAge: 86400000 }));

Usage with more options

app.use(minimonster.minify({ 
    src: __dirname + '/public', // required
    useInMemoryCache: true, // defaults to true
    inMemoryCacheTTL: 10800, // defaults to 3 hours
    cacheDirectoryName:  "_mm", // defaults to "_mm"
    cacheExtension: ".mini", // defaults to ".mini"
    debugMode: false, // defaults to false
    cssCompressor: 'yui-css', // defaults to "yui-css"
    jsCompressor:  'uglifyjs', // defaults to "uglifyjs"
    maxAge: 86400000 // default to 1 day
}));

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Description of options

• src string required no default

This is the path to the public directory containing all your css and js files. This is the folder minimonster will look into to compress and serve files from.

• useInMemoryCache boolean defaults to true

Flag telling minimonster to store results in memory cache or not. If this is set to true then minimonster will agressively cache all minified content into it's in-memory cache so that it minimizes physical disk access. This is recommended for high performance production environments.

• inMemoryCacheTTL number defaults to 10800

Time to live in milliseconds of in memory cache objects before eviction

• cacheDirectoryName string defaults to "_mm"

Name of the directory that cached versions of the minified files are saved into. This is not to be confused with the in memory cache. Once a file has been minified, it will be stored into this directory so that minification does not need to happen again. As minification is a relatively CPU intensive process, we do not want to minify something we've already minified.

• cacheExtension string defaults to ".mini"

This gets appended to the name of minified files. For instance if you have a file called application.js the new minified file will be called application.mini.js

• debugMode boolean defaults to false

Gives verbose output to console if set to true

• cssCompressor string defaults to "yui-css"

The compression engine for css files. Options are "yui-css", "sqwish"

• jsCompressor string defaults to "uglifyjs"

The compression engine for js files. Options are "gcc" (google closure compiler), "yui-js", "uglifyjs"

• maxAge number defaults to 86400000

The maxAge of the http Cache-Control headers for static files in milliseconds.

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Compressors

The compression is done with the node-minify module by srod.

As of node-minify v0.8.1 it supports the following compression schemes:

• YUI Compressor

  Yahoo Compressor can compress both JavaScript and CSS files.

  http://developer.yahoo.com/yui/compressor/

• Google Closure Compiler

  Google Closure Compiler can compress only JavaScript files.

  It will throw an error if you try with CSS files.

  http://code.google.com/closure/compiler

• UglifyJS

  UglifyJS can compress only JavaScript files.

  It will throw an error if you try with CSS files.

  https://github.com/mishoo/UglifyJS

• Sqwish

  Sqwish can compress only CSS files.

  https://github.com/ded/sqwish

• Warning

  It assumes you have Java installed on your environment for both GCC and YUI Compressor. To check, run:

java -version

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In Memory Cache

The in-memory cache is backed by node-cache by tcs-de

The inMemoryCacheTTL option can be used to control the TTL of in memory cache objects. The cache eviction cycle is run every 120 seconds.

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Tips

• Minimonster does a check against the last-modified timestamp on a file before compression, so if a cached version is out of date, then it will automatically re-cache a copy of the file - this should not be confused with the in-memory-cached copy, which must expire before minimonster will stop serving it.

• If the compressors are having issues minifying your javascript or css files (throwing errors), then try changing the compression engines. Some are more forgiving than others.

• If you are using the in-memory cache, then be sure to keep that in mind. I recommend setting in-memory cache to false in development environments where you are constantly updating your javascript and css files.

• Stopping and restarting your app will destory all in-memory cache values.

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License

Copyright (c) 2013 Calvin Alvin https://github.com/calvinalvin

The MIT License (MIT)

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.