collectstatic command should output minified files

[Diptesh Choudhuri]

The default files copied to STATIC_ROOT when you run python manage.py collectstatic should have two versions- file.js and file.min.js (similarly for css files). As far as I can see, this happens only for the preinstalled apps (like admin/actions.min.js) but not for user installed apps.

Serbing minified static files is important for all production environments for pretty much everyone who uses vanilla django. Though there are packages out there to do this, I feel it is important enough and has enough use cases to be added to the django core.

I can start working on this if it is accepted.

Let me know what you think!

Best

Diptesh Choudhuri

[Arvind Nedumaran]

I kinda like the idea of being able to run collectstatic and not have to worry about setting up a full on frontend workflow for pretty much just minification. It is a great default to have when this is all you need.

That said, I’d be more interested in seeing something like an official or a django-blessed unofficial default option similar to the sprokects-rails gem for ruby. Allowing for a much more flexible and extensive frontend pipeline without having to rely on an external task runner.

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[quest...@gmail.com]

There is CSS / Javascript merge and compress package for Python:

https://github.com/miracle2k/webassets

which supports Django, Flask, Pyramid.

See also:

https://www.slideshare.net/__amol__/pyconit7-dukpy-webassets-free-yourself-from-nodejs-chains

https://pypi.org/project/dukpy/

https://gist.github.com/amol-/0fd016bbb0c6c9a0fb6ab5bbedfcb7ad

https://github.com/rclmenezes/webassets-rollup

[Adam Johnson]

django-compressor is also popular: https://pypi.org/project/django-compressor/

IMO we should not include anything in Django since JavaScript is a separate language, and they have much better tools for minification and bundling, and these tools can move faster than and orthogonally to Django. And there are many options: Webpack, Parcel, Gulp, Grunt, Rollup, ..

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Adam

[Dmitriy Sintsov]

There is one trouble: Webpack assumes it's own subtree of assets to process, while Django loads assets from packages (Django apps) directories. I still haven't seen a successful setup of webpack which would respect loading assets from Django packages directories.

Another trouble, not everyone wants to carry node.js subsystem with it's huge list of packages in their Python / Django project.

But there are changes that transpiling would not be required in the future at all, after IE11 would fade to the past:

https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/you-might-not-need-to-transpile-your-javascript-4d5e0a438ca/

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[Arvind Nedumaran]

I didn't mean we should include things in Django. Even a workflow that integrates with Django using manage.py commands will be super useful.

Right now, I use Parcel + Tailwind (csspostprocessor mostly) + done JavaScript. It's supposed to be simple.

Even for this, I need to run to terminals (one for Django, one for the frontend) or use something like Honcho with a procfile just so I can develop in peace. Or I should hack gulp to run Django runserver for me.

This is not documented anywhere officially but is a very very common workflow even for small applications.

I'm saying we do something to make this an easier process.

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Subject: Re: collectstatic command should output minified files

 

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[Diptesh Choudhuri]

Correct. Also having to use third party packages (and even other languages!) for something so common and so useful feels incorrect somehow. 

Additionally, I also propose that  the HTMl files served by wsgi.py are minified. This will be significantly more difficult to achieve since HTML pages are served on the fly. But I think the benefits would surely outweigh the maintenance costs these features bring.

[Mariusz Felisiak]

-1

Correct. Also having to use third party packages (and even other languages!) for something so common and so useful feels incorrect somehow. 

Additionally, I also propose that  the HTMl files served by wsgi.py are minified. This will be significantly more difficult to achieve since HTML pages are served on the fly. But I think the benefits would surely outweigh the maintenance costs these features bring.

This idea has already been rejected, see #18524, and I agree with Aymeric's judgement.

About minifying JavaScript files, I don't see a strong reasons to include it in Django, it is a separate language (as pointed out by Adam), well-supported 3rd party apps already exist e.g. django-compressor, and this would require introducing many new dependencies which is always highly controversial.

Best,

Mariusz

[Adam Johnson]

Additionally, I also propose that  the HTMl files served by wsgi.py are minified.

 

This can already be done with e.g. https://htmlmin.readthedocs.io/en/latest/reference.html#wsgi-middlware . But normally HTML minification isn't particularly worth it since gzip/brotli can compress it well already.

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Adam

[Adam Johnson]

For those who want more information on getting Django to serve your frontend assets, Aymeric wrote some good react-focussed blog posts: https://fractalideas.com/blog/making-react-and-django-play-well-together-hybrid-app-model/

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Adam