Does a YUI Compressor GUI App Exist?

Question

I recently discovered Yahoo's YUI Compressor software and started using it on my website.

What I'm disappointed about with the software is its lack of a GUI, as well as a lack of a way to combine files.

Does anyone know of a project which uses the YUI Compressor as a backend that provides a GUI front-end with the ability to combine files?

I want to create a GUI application based on the YUI Compressor, but if one already exists, I'd rather use that.

Answer 1

I don't believe a GUI exists for YUI Compressor...probably because in most projects YUI Compressor is run by an automatic build process, and its command line parameters are of the "figure 'em out once, forget about 'em" nature.

In terms of combining files, this too would be easy to do with the current YUI Compressor and a command line (as I'm sure you already know), but the projects that I've worked on have opted for combining JS files at runtime before sending down to the client. This allows for greater flexibility of picking and choosing appropriate JS packages for a specific users' current needs (and thus minimizing the amount of JS being sent to the client while trying, of course, to balance these packages in an appropriate browser caching scheme). Steve Souders' "High Performance Web Sites" has great discussion on this topic.

That being said, a GUI for YUI Compressor certainly sounds like something worth doing, if for no other reason than helping expose all of YUI Compressor's power to those users who are only aware of the most basic command line parameters.

Answer 2

I've written a series about writing efficient web applications for The View. Since I'm a big fan of the YUI Compressor I had a friend create a GUI for it and create a JAVA application.

You can find YUI GUI for download here: http://eview.com/eview/volr6.nsf/852561460065adc3852561130021446a/caef1ae990071cb9852574b9006616fc?OpenDocument

Maybe a later release will include GZIP support as well, GZIP:ing the results of the YUI Compressor all in one go. One less step you have to do yourself... ;)

Answer 3

Yes, someone has created a web-based GUI for YUI compressor.

Answer 4

use http://refresh-sf.com/yui/............. don't use YUI GUI recommended by Joacim Boive..........it failed , doesn't work at all

Answer 5

You can also take a look at Javascript Obfuscator, javascript-source.com it has better compression ratio than yui

Answer 6

If you are after a reasonable simple implementation, CHA-CHING http://www.refresh-sf.com/yui/

Answer 7

I found this one: http://code.google.com/p/yuicompressorgui/

Answer 8

I made a .bat file to do the compression, and placed it in the sendto folder to have it available in the send to contextual menu in win xp.

this is the code, enjoy:

set str=%1 set str=%str:.js=.min.js% set str=%str:.css=.min.css%

java -jar D:\YUICOM~1\build\yuicompressor-2.4.2.jar %1 -o %str%

Answer 9

I wrote a Window Batch file to call the YUI Compressor from command line automatically. So, you can do batch compression without the need to call the javac manually one by one in the command line.

http://jeeshenlee.wordpress.com/2010/07/30/batch-process-yui-compressor/

Answer 10

Me too, I wrote a Windows batch just like you in the beginning. But an idea hit me. So I open my Ecplipse IDE and give YUI Compressor a GUI in Java Swing

http://xp-rience.blogspot.com/2010/08/yui-compressor-with-gui.html

Tested only with Windows XP with JRE6 installed. Never have time to test it out with other OS. Hope that helps.

Answer 11

I was recently looking for the same thing. After some time I came across this link: http://yuilibrary.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=94&t=91&p=262

Windows-based GUI app for the YUI compressor, self-contained with installer. Interface is pretty nice too.