Shinkansen: compress, crunch, combine, and cache JavaScript and CSS

Project Description
Shinkansen allows you to compress with gzip/deflate, crunch (minify, etc), combine into a single resource, and cache CSS and JavaScript includes.

Shinkansen is now available for both WebForms and MVC.

Features

In the feature list below, static resources refers to JavaScript and CSS.

• HTTP compression of static resources with gzip/deflate
• Crunching of static resources (minification, etc)
• Combining static resources into single downloads
• Caching of static resources on the client so they don't get requested again and again
• Moving JavaScript to the bottom of the page.

Benefits

• Your browser needs fewer threads to download resources. Threads are in short supply to begin with.
• HTTP compression gives you tremendous bandwidth savings.
• Minification of source files produces smaller files.
• Client caching allows downloaded resources to stay on the client. As long as they don't change, the browser won't download them again.
• Server caching allows to save CPU cycles by streaming resources from memory.

These benefits give you smaller, faster downloads; save bandwidth; and improve the overall responsiveness of your site.

Configuration

See documentation (tab above) for configuration details.

Resources

• Two books, High Performance Web Sites and Even Faster Web Sites, have been an inspiration for this project.
• How Much Can You Save With HTTP Compression? -- a blog post of mine explaining the benefits of HTTP compression.
• Measure bandwidth savings with HTTP compression -- a free online tool
• Yahoo YUI Compressor vs. Microsoft AJAX Minifier vs. Google Closure Compiler -- the title says it all.

Essential Tools

• YSlow -- a Firefox add-on from Yahoo.
• Page Speed -- a Firefox add-on from Google.
• YSlow Performance Rules -- Shinkansen incorporates several of these best practices.
• Page Speed Performance Best Practices -- ditto.
• <machineKey> Generator.