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Managing multiple CSS and javascript files, and reduce your http requests

05 Aug 2010

Reading time: 1 minute

We are always looking at optimizing performance in our website.

we have loads of features through the site, but we like to program the work modularly. As a result a single page can have up to 50 different CSS and javascript files. Each of them are very small, but serve a specific function.

An example might be as follows...




<link href="/Css/reset.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" /> <!-- We want to style nicely -->
<link href="/Css/default.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" /> <!-- Our sitewide font sizes and colours -->
<link href="/Css/DropdownLists.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" /> <!-- We have dropdown list navigation done in CSS -->
<link href="/Css/footer.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" /> <!-- The footer is quite a large chunk that we style nicely -->
<link href="/Css/signinRibbon.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" /> <!-- This is above the header -->
<link href="/Css/newswide.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" /> <!-- This is a page that uses our News panel -->
<link href="/Css/buttons.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" /> <!-- We have buttons on the page, so include our nice button styles -->


This is 7 stylesheet requests before we even get started on the actual content in the page!

Rule number one of ySlow! suggests you minimize the number of HTTP requests. They show that most users visits to your site are from users with an empty cache.

We decided we needed a way to minimize the number of requests per page.

I don't have time to waste on creating a massive solution and a quick browse on the internet yeilded nothing exicting that my Boss wanted to pay for, so I quickly wrote this:

/CSS/MasterHomepage.aspx


<%@ Page language="VB" ContentType="text/css" %>
<!-- #Include virtual="~/Css/reset.css" -->
<!-- #Include virtual="~/css/default.css" -->
<!-- #Include virtual="~/Css/buttons.css" -->
<!-- #Include virtual="~/Css/DropdownLists.css" -->
<!-- #Include virtual="~/css/footer.css" -->
<!-- #Include virtual="~/css/signinRibbon.css" -->
<!-- #Include virtual="~/Css/newswide.css" -->


All I have to do is include a single file in the page, and I get all the stylesheets.

<link href="/Css/MasterHomepage.aspx" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" />

Suddenly i've reduced the 5 files to 1.

I can use the same technique for javascript



<script type="text/javascript" src="/js/googlecse.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="/js/pngfix.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="/js/jquery.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="/js/DropdownList.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="/js/daterangepicker.js"></script>


becomes



<%@ Page language="VB" ContentType="text/javascript" %>
<!-- #Include virtual="~/js/googlecse.js" -->
<!-- #Include virtual="~/js/pngfix.js" -->
<!-- #Include virtual="~/js/jquery.js" -->
<!-- #Include virtual="~/js/DropdownList.js" -->
<!-- #Include virtual="~/js/daterangepicker.js" -->


That's it for now, but check back later to see how we sped up these pages further.