Minifying CSS
YUI Compressor is a tool for minifying CSS code. Minification or compression means removing all unnecessary characters, such as spaces, new lines, comments without changing the functionality of the source code. During development and debugging, these characters make code easier to read. At the production stage they only increase the size of code to be transferred.
Installing and configuring the YUI Compressor
Open the embedded Terminal (Alt+F12), and type
npm install yuicompressorat the command prompt.
Compressing the CSS code
To compress your code on the fly, you need to configure the compressor as a CLion File Watcher.
To create a File Watcher
In the Settings/Preferences dialog (Ctrl+Alt+S), click File Watchers under Tools. The File Watchers page that opens shows the list of already configured File Watchers.
Click the
or press Alt+Insert and choose the YUI Compressor CSS predefined template from the list. In the Program text box, specify the path to the
yuicompressor-<version>.jarfile. If you installed the tool through the Node Package Manager, CLion locates the required file itself and fills in the field automatically. Otherwise, type the path manually or click
and choose the file location in the dialog box that opens.
When a minification File Watcher is enabled, minification starts automatically as soon as a CSS file in the File Watcher's scope is changed or saved.
CLion creates a separate file with the generated output. The file has the name of the source CSS file and the extension min.css. The location of the generated file is defined in the Output paths to refresh text box of the New Watcher dialog. However, in the Project Tree, by default it is shown under the source CSS file which is now displayed as a node. To change the default presentation, configure file nesting in the Project tool window.