Welcome!
========

FrontCompiler is a simple collection of compactors for the JavaScript,
CSS and HTML source code. It removes trailing whitespaces, comments and
transformates the local variables to make the sourcecode shorter.

The library can be used as a plugin for rails. See description below.


Usage
=====

It's pretty simple

@c = FrontCompiler.new

@compact_js = @c.compact_js(File.open('src/something.js', 'r'));
@compact_css = @c.compact_css(File.open('src/something.css', 'r'));
@compact_html = @c.compact_html(File.open('src/something.css', 'r'));

or shorter

@compact_js = @c.compact_file('src/something.js');
@compact_css = @c.compact_file('src/something.css');
@compact_html = @c.compact_file('src/something.css');

or you can compact several files at once like that

@library_code = @c.compact_files(%w{
  src/lib.js
  src/lib/something.js
  src/lib/another.js
})

Same for the other file-types


CSS Inlining
============

With the tool you can convert your css source in some javascript
definition so you could put the styles in the same file as your
javascript and have -1 (or several) hits to your sever.

File('public/javascripts/all_in_one.js', 'w') do |file|
  file.write @c.compact_files(%w{
    public/javascripts/prototype.js
    public/javascripts/effects.js
    public/javascripts/application.js
  })

  file.write @c.inline(
    File.open('public/stylesheets/application.css').read
  )
end

Now you have a single javascript file which contains both, javascript
and the application stylesheets in one.

NOTE: if the user have JavaScript switched off, then he won't see the
styles.


Rails Usage
===========

The project can be used as a usual rails plugin. Just clone the
project into your vendor/plugins/front_compiler directory and you will
have the following methods aviable both in your controllers and
templates


* compact_files(list) - compacts the files fromt the given list and
                        puts them in a single string. You can specify
                        a list of file-names here.

* compact_file(file)  - compacts the given file (can be a file-name)

* compact_js(source)  - returns compacted version of the given source
* compact_css(source)
* compact_html(source)

* inline_css(source)    - converts the css-source in javascript
* inline_css_file(file) - converts the given css-file in a javascript
                          source (can be a file-name)


Enjoy!

--
The code released under terms of the MIT License
Copyright (C) 2008 Nikolay V. Nemshilov aka St.