Tonbrand Software

Contents of the HTML-Optimizer Manual for Mac OS X

Introduction

HTML-Optimizer makes your pages load faster by optimizing both HTML and script code. It helps you keep organized by creating a duplicate site folder for the optimized files. An added benefit is that it leaves your original files untouched.
You should use your original web folder for editing and use the duplicate web folder for uploading.
HTML-Optimizer features Smart Handling and is XML-ready.

There exists also a program called HTML-Optimizer Pro from Tonbrand Software that has the same optimizing capability as HTML-Optimizer but can manage more than one web folder and adds extra features, e.g. checking tags and links.

This is the display area where you see the Progress Bar, the Stop button etc. When using the application, the Log Display will appear here. This is the control area where you find the button groups for using the application.

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Though the savings percentage may seem small, load time savings is much higher as a browser parses the pages more efficient. This program does NOT remove quotation marks from attribute values and hyperlink strings - as some other optimizers do to get impressive savings - because this would actually slow down the browser's parsing speed and - moreover - violate the W3C HTML rules!
See 'About Optimizing' for details on the optimizing process.

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Smart Handling

HTML-Optimizer features an option called Smart Handling. If you have a large web folder you can optimize only the pages that have been changed. For example, you have a web site consisting of 500 pages and you have worked on let's say 25 pages. You would not like to optimize all 500. Instead, you turn on Smart Handling, choose Entire Web Folder and start. Now only those 25 out of 500 pages are processed. This can be a significant timesaving.

In Preferences you can choose between 'date+time' and 'date (today)'. If you choose 'today', a file may be handled more than once during that day, else it's only handled once.

The checkbox 'Restore Modification Date' in Preferences will be checked and disabled when you turn Smart Handling on. In fact, before you can take advantage of this feature, you must optimize your entire web folder with 'Restore Modification Date' checked.

The Smart Handling checkbox is disabled when you have chosen to optimize one file. Neither does it work when you drag and drop files. The Smart Handling feature is only effective if you choose Folder or Entire Web Folder.

The Smart Handling checkbox is disabled when you have chosen to optimize one file. Neither does it work when you drag and drop files. The Smart Handling feature is only effective if you choose Folder or Entire Web Folder.

About Optimizing

During the optimizing process, your original pages remain untouched for later editing, which is quite useful since optimized pages are hard to read for humans (unless you have turned off 'Remove Returns' in Preferences).
Optimized web pages are written to your duplicate web folder which is in the Optimizer Output folder which in turn is by default placed in the same folder where your web folder resides. Later you can always relocate the Optimizer Output folder - see the Configure menu.

Your duplicate web folder has its name spelled in CAPITALS to distinguish it from your original. This makes browsing in order to select it easier. For technical reasons the program requires that the name of the duplicate folder stays the same as the original. If you optimize a file or folder not belonging to any web folder, it will be written directly to the Optimizer Output folder.

WARNING: Do not open an optimized web page with the HTML Editor that originally created it! This will undo most of the optimizing because the Editor adds its own formatting again!

HTML-Optimizer removes the following tags by default:
   Optional end tags such as </OPTION> (but not from XHTML or XML files in which end tags are not optional any more).
   Forbidden end tags such as </IMG>
   Redundant Editor tags such as "naturalsizeflag"
   Meta Generator tags.

The following characters are removed by default:
   Carriage returns from Mac, Windows or Unix files (CRs, CRLFs and LFs)
   Tabs
   Multiple whitespace
   Redundant whitespace

Code between these tags is dealt with separate from the main code:
   <SCRIPT> and </SCRIPT>
   <SERVER> and </SERVER>
   <APPLET> and </APPLET>
   <STYLE> and </STYLE>
   <OBJECT> and </OBJECT>
   <PRE> and </PRE>
   <NOOP> and </NOOP>
   <? and ?>

The <? and ?> tags can enclose new lassoscript or php code or any other code that follows the same basic syntax.

The <NOOP> and </NOOP> custom tags - "NOOP" means No Optimizing - can be applied by you to enclose a certain HTML code block that you don't want to be touched. You should not nest the NOOP tags within any of the tags listed above. The NOOP tags will not appear in the optimized file.

In Preferences you can indicate which subfolders in your web folder should not be handled by HTML-Optimizer. Some HTML Editors, for example Dreamweaver, save data in specific folders that should not be optimized. Note that the text field in which you enter the names of those folders is case sensitive - this can turn out to be handy if you manage different web sites.

Comments in HTML code and script code can be removed by choice. Comments that start with <!--#, for example Apache SSI comments, will not be removed.

Optimization of script and removing script comments can not only be executed on client-side scripts (between <SCRIPT> and </SCRIPT> tags) but also on server-side scripts between <SERVER> and </SERVER> tags and between <? and ?> tags in files with the .lasso or .php suffix, for example.

Incomplete URLs like "http://www.xyz.com" can be qualified, i.e. they will get a slash at the end which makes it twice as fast for a browser to go to that URL.

Be careful with the option to remove spurious white space as this could also remove required space in certain cases.

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The Log

The optimizer results are shown in the Log. You see the number of bytes saved and the percentage with regard to the original size.
The Log Display can show a practically unlimited number of lines, but you will be prompted when the History Log gets so full that performance would slow down, so that you may empty it by choosing Purge Log from the File menu. The Logs are located in the HTML-Optimizer Logs folder which is in the Preferences folder.

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The Configure menu

The Relocate Optimizer Output Folder command allows you to move the entire Optimizer Output folder to another location on the same volume.
If you want to move the Optimizer Output folder to another volume you will be prompted to copy the entire folder. If you agree, you are asked if you want to delete the old folder after the copy process be completed.
Never move the Optimizer Output folder manually.

The Choose New Web Folder command allows you to override an initial or a previous choice.
HTML-Optimizer is meant to be used with one web folder. If you want to manage more than one web folder, you should consider HTML-Optimizer Pro or even Web Site Maestro if you want an FTP client built-in.

Should things ever go wrong and corrupt the program's configuration, an easy way out is to choose the Reset Configuration command. After this action you must configure HTML-Optimizer again but your registration data and preferences are remembered.

If resetting has not solved the problem, choose the Reset Configuration command again while holding down the Alt key. The HTML-Optimizer Preferences file will be cleared. Your registration data will be deleted and must be re-entered.
Tip: You can see your registration code if you click on your name in the About... window while holding down the Alt key. Of course you must do that before you clear the HTML-Optimizer Preferences file!

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The Extra menu

This menu offers some commands to manage your duplicate web folder. In fact, this duplicate is very important and it should be the one from which you upload pages to the remote server. It must always be in top condition. To accomplish this you have 3 options at your disposal: updating the directory, updating the contents and synchronizing it with the original web folder. Synchronizing means that if you add or remove a file or a folder from the original web folder, it will also be added to or removed from the duplicate. Should you ever experience that a major change is not fully adopted, then you just execute the Synchronize command again.

The more you change in your original web folder after the duplicate has been made, the more you need to use one of these commands. Synchronizing includes both update commands. It's a good idea to execute the Synchronize command every time you launch the program.

Note that when you update your duplicate web folder contents, your optimized web pages are not overwritten, of course. File types that are not handled by HTML-Optimizer, for example graphic files, will be copied to replace older ones, though.

The Remove Resources from Duplicate Files command allows you to delete the resources of all files in the duplicate web folder. In practice this will only concern graphic files. Resources are useless for the Internet so we can safely remove them. Note that the optimized web pages have no resource fork at all.

In the PowerPC and 68K versions of HTML-Optimizer the whole resource fork is deleted and in the OSX version the resource fork is emptied.

If you execute this command and later you synchronize your duplicate web folder, the resources are all back of course, unless you check the 'Remove Resources when Synchronizing' checkbox in Preferences.

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The Select button

The Select button does the obvious: it shows an Open Dialog, with the current web folder as the default directory (in most systems). If you click the 'Entire Web Folder' button, the Select button changes its name into Start. Your entire web folder will then be processed, up to a depth of 8 levels. Of course, you can always safely abort the process by pressing the Stop button.

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The Preferences

In the 'Allowed Suffix' box at the left you see the suffixes - or file extensions - that allow the files in question to be handled by HTML-Optimizer. All other files are ignored. The Optimization Options give you flexibility on what to include in the optimization process.

This is a very important part of HTML-Optimizer, giving you maximum flexibility without offering obscure options you don't want to be bothered with. Note that Help Tags pop up when you move the pointer to a checkbox or radiobutton and hold it there for a moment, so the descriptions are not repeated here.
Pressing the Save button will save and pressing the Cancel button will undo anything you have just done.

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Drag and Drop

The program's main window has a drop spot where you can drag web pages to.

Of course, you can also drop files on the program's icon or its shortcut, as you would expect. If you do that while the program is not running, it will be launched and the dropped file(s) will be optimized.

Limitation if Unregistered

When you start using HTML-Optimizer as a demo, your trial period is limited to 20 days. A countdown timer reminds you at startup and at random intervals when starting an action. When the expiry date approaches you will get a warning when you have 10 days left, and so on. Please register in time so that you can continue working with HTML-Optimizer without delay.

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