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I am currently starting to build an PhoneGap application, I know the advantages of minifying code for browsers already. However, I was wondering if it was worth minifying my HTML, JavaScript and CSS code for my PhoneGap application?
I would understand that the code run faster potentially faster?
Also if that is the case is there an application that will do it all for me? (When I say do it for me I mean take a directory on my machine and minify the code saving a .min.js version? or is it a simple file by file?)
Thanks in advance for any help
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Minification is the process of minimizing code and markup in your web pages and script files. It's one of the main methods used to reduce load times and bandwidth usage on websites. Minification dramatically improves site speed and accessibility, directly translating into a better user experience.
To minify CSS, try CSSNano and csso. To minify JavaScript, try UglifyJS. The Closure Compiler is also very effective. You can create a build process that uses these tools to minify and rename the development files and save them to a production directory.
Minification, also known as minimization, is the process of removing all unnecessary characters from JavaScript source code without altering its functionality. This includes the removal of whitespace, comments, and semicolons, along with the use of shorter variable names and functions.
Minification does improve performance for two reasons: Reduced file-size (because it removes comments and unnecessary white spaces), so your script loads faster. Even if it is embedded into the <head> . It is parsed faster, since comments and white spaces don't have to be explicitly ignored (since they're not there).
Well tickle my feet and call me grandma, but I have been minifying the javascript for my phoneGap app, and it most certainly improves performance.
Of course there is barely any difference in terms of the size of the application package. So the one time that a user downloads and installs the app, there is no real gain from minifying.
But every time the user runs the app, having minified javascript does make a difference. Even though the file is local, it still needs to be loaded into the 'browser', and smaller files are loaded faster and will thus start executing earlier.
And chances are you'll have a lot of javascript since most apps want to "do" something instead of just providing passive HTML content.
I'm considering minifying the phonegap.js file itself too. Any thoughts on that are highly appreciated.
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