An HTML Optimizer’s Config for html-minifier

Post from December 20, 2019 (↻ May 28, 2021), filed under Web Development.

Jad (Joubran) asked me about my configuration for html-minifier the other week, and in a hurry I pointed him to the config I had worked out for sum.cumo. In my own projects, however, I work with a different, more ambitious setup. It’s this, which I’m just going to throw over the fence:

collapseBooleanAttributes: true,
collapseInlineTagWhitespace: true,
collapseWhitespace: true,
conservativeCollapse: true,
decodeEntities: true,
includeAutoGeneratedTags: false,
minifyCSS: true,
minifyJS: true,
minifyURLs: true,
preventAttributesEscaping: true,
processConditionalComments: true,
removeAttributeQuotes: true,
removeComments: true,
removeEmptyAttributes: true,
removeOptionalTags: true,
removeRedundantAttributes: true,
removeScriptTypeAttributes: true,
removeStyleLinkTypeAttributes: true,
sortAttributes: true,
sortClassName: true,
trimCustomFragments: true,
useShortDoctype: true

It translates to the following parameters in the command line:

--collapse-boolean-attributes
--collapse-inline-tag-whitespace --collapse-whitespace
--conservative-collapse --decode-entities --minify-css
--minify-js --minify-urls --no-include-auto-generated-tags
--prevent-attributes-escaping --process-conditional-comments
--remove-attribute-quotes --remove-comments --remove-empty-attributes
--remove-optional-tags --remove-redundant-attributes
--remove-script-type-attributes --remove-style-link-type-attributes
--sort-attributes --sort-class-name --trim-custom-fragments
--use-short-doctype

(As you can tell I’m assuming some knowledge about using html-minifier.)

Defensive Optimization

Occasionally I’d use a less aggressive, more “stable” configuration to optimize HTML code. The following setup, for example, I’ve recently used to “polish” the in good parts static files of meiert.com:

collapseBooleanAttributes: true,
decodeEntities: true,
removeOptionalTags: true,
removeRedundantAttributes: true,
removeScriptTypeAttributes: true,
removeStyleLinkTypeAttributes: true

For the command line:

--collapse-boolean-attributes --decode-entities
--remove-optional-tags --remove-redundant-attributes
--remove-script-type-attributes --remove-style-link-type-attributes

Here’s the full command I use in my structure, if that’s useful:

html-minifier --collapse-boolean-attributes --decode-entities
--remove-optional-tags --remove-redundant-attributes
--remove-script-type-attributes --remove-style-link-type-attributes
--file-ext html --input-dir meiert.com/ --output-dir meiert.com/

❧ I work with these setups in a mostly manual fashion because for some projects, like UITest.com or The World’s Highest Website, I intentionally manage everything manually, whereas in others, like HH Kaffee, it’s completely automated. For me this makes for a good mix for honing my skills while not wasting too much time when the code base is rather large.

When it comes to html-minifier, I think Juriy (aka kangax) has done extraordinary work with it. As I said in my optional HTML primer I consider it the best and most important tool for HTML optimization. Use it (while keeping your manual HTML skills sharp)!

About Me

I’m Jens Oliver Meiert, and I’m an engineering manager and author. I’ve worked as a technical lead for Google, I’m close to the W3C and the WHATWG, and I write and review books for O’Reilly. Other than that, I love trying things, sometimes including philosophy, art, and adventure. Here on meiert.com I share some of my views and experiences.

If you have questions or suggestions about what I write, please leave a comment (if available) or a message.

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