How to Minify JavaScripts and Stylesheets with YUI Compressor

Yahoo! provides an excellent utility for minifying JavaScripts and stylesheets so they travel over the wire faster, the YUI Compressor. Thanks to Assetic, you can take advantage of this tool very easily.

Download the YUI Compressor JAR

The YUI Compressor is written in Java and distributed as a JAR. Download the JAR from the Yahoo! site and save it to app/Resources/java/yuicompressor.jar.

Configure the YUI Filters

Now you need to configure two Assetic filters in your application, one for minifying JavaScripts with the YUI Compressor and one for minifying stylesheets:

• YAML

  # app/config/config.yml
  assetic:
      filters:
          yui_css:
              jar: "%kernel.root_dir%/Resources/java/yuicompressor.jar"
          yui_js:
              jar: "%kernel.root_dir%/Resources/java/yuicompressor.jar"
  

• XML

  <!-- app/config/config.xml -->
  <assetic:config>
      <assetic:filter
          name="yui_css"
          jar="%kernel.root_dir%/Resources/java/yuicompressor.jar" />
      <assetic:filter
          name="yui_js"
          jar="%kernel.root_dir%/Resources/java/yuicompressor.jar" />
  </assetic:config>
  

• PHP

  // app/config/config.php
  $container->loadFromExtension('assetic', array(
      'filters' => array(
          'yui_css' => array(
              'jar' => '%kernel.root_dir%/Resources/java/yuicompressor.jar',
          ),
          'yui_js' => array(
              'jar' => '%kernel.root_dir%/Resources/java/yuicompressor.jar',
          ),
      ),
  ));
  

You now have access to two new Assetic filters in your application: yui_css and yui_js. These will use the YUI Compressor to minify stylesheets and JavaScripts, respectively.

Minify your Assets

You have YUI Compressor configured now, but nothing is going to happen until you apply one of these filters to an asset. Since your assets are a part of the view layer, this work is done in your templates:

• Twig

  {% javascripts '@AcmeFooBundle/Resources/public/js/*' filter='yui_js' %}
  <script src="{{ asset_url }}"></script>
  {% endjavascripts %}
  

• PHP

  <?php foreach ($view['assetic']->javascripts(
      array('@AcmeFooBundle/Resources/public/js/*'),
      array('yui_js')) as $url): ?>
  <script src="<?php echo $view->escape($url) ?>"></script>
  <?php endforeach; ?>
  

Note

The above example assumes that you have a bundle called AcmeFooBundle and your JavaScript files are in the Resources/public/js directory under your bundle. This isn’t important however - you can include your Javascript files no matter where they are.

With the addition of the yui_js filter to the asset tags above, you should now see minified JavaScripts coming over the wire much faster. The same process can be repeated to minify your stylesheets.

• Twig

  {% stylesheets '@AcmeFooBundle/Resources/public/css/*' filter='yui_css' %}
  <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" media="screen" href="{{ asset_url }}" />
  {% endstylesheets %}
  

• PHP

  <?php foreach ($view['assetic']->stylesheets(
      array('@AcmeFooBundle/Resources/public/css/*'),
      array('yui_css')) as $url): ?>
  <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" media="screen" href="<?php echo $view->escape($url) ?>" />
  <?php endforeach; ?>
  

Disable Minification in Debug Mode

Minified JavaScripts and Stylesheets are very difficult to read, let alone debug. Because of this, Assetic lets you disable a certain filter when your application is in debug mode. You can do this be prefixing the filter name in your template with a question mark: ?. This tells Assetic to only apply this filter when debug mode is off.

• Twig

  {% javascripts '@AcmeFooBundle/Resources/public/js/*' filter='?yui_js' %}
  <script src="{{ asset_url }}"></script>
  {% endjavascripts %}
  

• PHP

  <?php foreach ($view['assetic']->javascripts(
      array('@AcmeFooBundle/Resources/public/js/*'),
      array('?yui_js')) as $url): ?>
  <script src="<?php echo $view->escape($url) ?>"></script>
  <?php endforeach; ?>