RealTime Template Compressor: Reduces page sizes, loads pages faster, saves Bandwidth

As you know all vbulletin pages consists of templates and templates consists of HTML (+sometimes javascript) tags.

Nearly in all sites and HTML pages, HTML tags are written in a readable format so that developer can read the source code easily. VB templates abide by this rule too.

However when this "nicely readable" code is called by a visitor, page size unnecessarily increases because of the redundant "spaces" and "line breaks" in the source code which have no useful purpose regarding the page output but is there just for making the source code more readable to the developer.

This hack removes these unnecessary spaces and line breaks from your vbulletin templates AT THE MOMENT they are displayed (in realtime). It does NOT touch your original source code so it is still readable to you when you want to edit it in your admin CP. But it compress the output when they are sent to user's browser.

Removal of these unnecessary characters makes sure:
a) Page output shrinks in all vb pages
b) Thus page loads faster by all visitors
c) You save bandwidth.

Since the removed characters are unnecessary characters, display of your page does NOT change. Please see FAQ below for more info.

This hack is 100% compatible with Teck's Microstat Hack and my Advanced Templates: Dynamic Templates Changing according to different conditions hack and WebTemplates 2.x: VB Integrated Content Management System . It is a very easy to install add (just a few lines in 1 step) yet effective.

I appreciate if you can click INSTALL button, if you use the hack. Thank you. :glasses:

[lasto]

i noticed the buttons where all together and thought it was me

ok will fix with command above cheers

[StrykerContact]

This is great, I use to use this sort of thing to compress my html pages.

[Kriek]

Excellent, though there seemed to be thousands of instances spanning thirteen styles/skins where I would need to replace relevant spaces with & nbsp;. So I decided to replay the backup functions file.

[Sebastian]

Logician, this is a great hack. However, i will not use it because i am too picky and html must look readable

i know there are many people that like to view the page source, i myself do.

its just a habit by most coders to look at the page source.

you also have to note that 1byte is extremely small, 1,000 bytes is just about 1KB.

there really isn't much you'll be saving, as even a user on 56k would probably not even noticed a difference in 5,000 bytes.

you might save a dollar or two by doing this, but a lot of page source viewers are gonna be like "what a crappy coder"

lol

seriously though, good thought.
i am trying to focus my time in reducing vbulletin queries. that is what kills me.

[Erwin]

09-01-03 at 10:17 PM Logician said this in Post #45
As a matter of fact all these minor side effects can be cured by using

PHP Code:

  


instead of spaces in the affected templates. It is a better syntax as far as HTML is concerned too.

True, except

PHP Code:

  


creates a wider space than a normal HTML whitespace. However, I still love your hack. 5% savings is equal to many many gigabytes for me per year.

[Logician]

Today at 01:44 AM Sebastian said this in Post #49
you also have to note that 1byte is extremely small, 1,000 bytes is just about 1KB.

there really isn't much you'll be saving, as even a user on 56k would probably not even noticed a difference in 5,000 bytes.

I don't agree. If your gain is 5%, this means your speed is also 5% and it is not that trivial considering the fact that it applies to ALL vb pages, not only 1 page.

Besides if you are on a server which you are paying according to your bandwidth consumption (on most dedicated it is so) and you have a high traffic, even %1 or %2 less consumption can make a difference when it comes to paying your server bills especially in the long term.

But if you have a small site eating 2 GB. per month and your host allows you to spend 30 GB. per month, well you may not care about this hack or any other bandwidth related issues which is understandable.

you might save a dollar or two by doing this, but a lot of page source viewers are gonna be like "what a crappy coder"

Oh just the contrary! A professional checking your source code will understand the logic behind instantly and such a comment will come from only a newbie.

As a matter of fact when I check source code of pages, I blame the developer if I notice a lot of inlined lines in the HTML code. It shows that dev. is either unaware of the results of these lines or don't care.

So please label the correct person as "the crappy coder". :glasses:

[David Bott]

I like the idea of this hack very much. On our site this would make a hugh impact in bandwidth seeing we currently to about 1.7 Terabytes a month. (Yes, you read that right.) But I just could not get past some of of the spacing issues created. I did a quick test of it, it worked very well, but during the short test I got 3 e-mails telling me something is wrong with the spaces on the site. (Like the page links)

Oh well....great job non-the-less.

David Bott
AVS Forum
http://www.avsforum.com

[Boofo]

Another excellent hack by the "Master". Thank you, sir.

[Skyline_GT]

nice hack

[MaDCaT75]

Sorry but this just makes everything look weird on my forums.

[insanctus]

Hmm it only changed the spacing of my page links in threads, rest was not effected.

[MaDCaT75]

Yeah I just didnt like that part :ermm:

[insanctus]

all ya have to do as add html code for space, I just do not care enough to lmao.

[MaDCaT75]

I did that... it looked really weird :ermm:

[lasto]

all it did to me was make all buttons more compact but the above code fixed that.Besides that i aint noticed nothing weird.