Ignoring resources

Sometimes, not all resources should be stapled, i.e. bundled with HtmlStapler.

Which resources to ignore?

  • resources with dynamic content, that can change during the application execution; like some dynamically generated javascript
  • resources that depends on its path. For example, some javascripts may try to dynamically load other javascripts located in the same folder or located in some subfolder. Since bundle path is changed to the root, this will not work any more (see example below).

To explicitly ignore a resource, add dummy parameter: jodd-unstaple in the url; for example: /dynamic.js?p1=v1&jodd-unstaple

All links with this parameter will not be stapled into the bundle and, therefore, not removed from the page.

IE optional condition tags

Resources defined between IEs optional condition tags are not collected into bundles. They are optional and IE only, so stapling them does not have sense.

Example: TinyMCE

This example gives better explanation of the above second point, when resources should be ignored. Let's say we are using TinyMCE editor. It's javascript library that dynamically loads it's plugins, stored in various subfolders.

If we follow common usage pattern, TinyMCE javascript files will be stored in the one subfolder under the webroot: tiny_mce. So, the usage would be like this:

    <html>
        <head>HtmlStapler + TinyMCE</head>
        <script type="text/javascript"
            src="/tiny_mce/tiny_mce.js"></script>
        <script type="text/javascript">
            tinyMCE.init({
                ...
            });
        </script>
    ...

If we run this page with HtmlStapler enabled, it won't work! Why? Because the content of tiny_mce.js is stored in the bundle (with other potential javascripts) and it is loaded from the different path (/jodd-bundle), and not from the tiny_mce folder. So TinyMCE can't find and load any plugin.

One way to solve this is to simply ignore TinyMCE from stapling by adding the jodd-unstaple parameter:

    <html>
        <head>HtmlStapler + TinyMCE</head>
        <script type="text/javascript"
            src="/tiny_mce/tiny_mce.js?jodd-unstaple"></script>
        <script type="text/javascript">
            tinyMCE.init({
                ...
            });
        </script>
    ...

If you insist in having TinyMCE main JS stapled, then you have to move subfolder from tiny_mce to the root so to be found. Unfortunately, this way you loose the transparency of using HtmlStapler, so it is not considered as a good idea. Better idea is to programmatically set the correct paths (if possible) on TinyMCE initialization.

The same applies to any other JavaScript libraries, like CKEditor, etc.

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