djamboloader

djamboloader (for django combo loader) is a simple django application used to load and combine a list of javascript or css files from the filesystem for a specific library.

It is very useful for projects containing a lot of javascript or css files where making one single HTTP request that combines all required files at once can improve performance of a web application significantly.

djamboloader is inspired by the combo handler provided by Yahoo! for YUI3 (http://yui.yahooapis.com/combo) and is intended for developers willing to run their own combo handler. It makes it easy to integrate the handler in your existing django web application but can also be run as a standalone handler.

djamboloader is available for use under the MIT software license. See LICENSE file for more details.

Installation

To add djamboloader to your django webapp you have to make sure the path to djamboloader is in your PYTHONPATH, add 'djamboloader' to your django INSTALLED_APPS and add the following to your django url patterns:

url(r'^djamboloader/', include('djamboloader.urls'))

Feel free to also add a new handler in your django logging configuration for 'djamboloader'.

For more information on how to setup django, refer to http://www.djangoproject.com

Configuration

To configure djamboloader, open djamboloader/settings.py and edit the LIBRARIES definition, for example:

LIBRARIES = {
  "yui3": {
    "path": "/home/libs/yui3/build/",
  },
  "yui2in3": {
    "path": "/home/libs/yui2in3/dist/2.8.0/build/",
  },
  "mylib": {
    "path": "/home/libs/mylib/build/",
  },
}

Configuration through Django's settings.py file

Alternatively, you could configure djamboloader in Django's settings.py file by using the JAVASCRIPT_LIBRARIES setting. The syntax is the same as for LIBRARIES above.

Djamboloader will try to import from Django's settings.py file first, then it falls back on djamboloader/settings.py.

This option will make it easier to install djamboloader as a package in virtual environment and to easily upgrade to later versions, without having to change anything inside the djamboloader package itself.

Caching

Djamboloader supports caching of the JavaScript libraries by using Django's cache framework.

The first step is to make sure you have set up the Django cache as described in the Django documentation.

After that, you can use the cache_for setting to specify how many seconds would you like to cache each library.

Example for a Django settings.py file:

TEN_DAYS = 10 * 24 * 60 * 60
THIRTY_DAYS = 30 * 24 * 60 * 60
JAVASCRIPT_LIBRARIES = {
    "yui_3_5_1": {
        "path": os.path.join(PROJECT_DIRECTORY, "static/javascript/lib/yui-3.5.1/build/"),
        "cache_for": TEN_DAYS, 
    },
    "yui2in3_2_9_0": {
        "path": os.path.join(PROJECT_DIRECTORY, "static/javascript/lib/yui-2in3/dist/2.9.0/build/"),
        "cache_for": THIRTY_DAYS,
    },
}

In the example above YUI 3 will be cached for 10 days, yui2in3 will be cached for 30 days. The cache_for setting is optional, in case you don't use it the libraries won't be cached at all.

Note In case you do cache for a long period, it is probably a good idea to include the version number of the JS library in the URL (as you see above) to make upgrading of libraries easier.

Examples

http://yourserver.com/djamboloader/yui3/combo?base/base.js&dom/dom.js&node/node.js... http://yourserver.com/djamboloader/yourlib/combo?pathto/libfile1.js&pathto/libfile2.js...

will return a single response with all requested javascript files combined