Further optimizing DNN JS files

At the risk of souding dumb...

Am I right to understand that the section in the Snapsis.Pageblaster.Config file (v3.3.1) where you can enable replacement rules to further optimize DNN JS files has nothing to do with the Static File handler? Or to pose the question another way: Can you enable the replacement rules for optimizing the DNN JS files while keeping the Static File handler part of the web.config file commented out?

Finally, I see that the replacement rules for optimizing the DNN JS files do the following:

• Move dnn xhtml js to Head,
• Move dnn js links to Head,
• Move dnn.Controls inits to bottom.

What is the advantage of this?

Thanks

Eoghano

You are right. Those rules can further optimize DNN by allowing them to be merged into one file which will then be minified, compressed, and cached.  It does not require the StaticFileHandler.

The way PageBlaster decides that it is safe to merge the files is by only merging the ones in the head section.  The rules are designed in a way that moves those extra files to the head from the middle of the page.  The xhtml one has to be moved first, because of some redundent conflicts in the core DNN JS.

As part of the optimization, the Merged JS file is also moved to the bottom of the page. This makes your page render much faster in the browser.  Since the JS File is at the bottom, then the initialization of the controls also has to come after that at the bottom, so those are also moved.

Now the Page can load and be renderered using the merged CSS file and after it is visible in the browser it can do all the JS initialization.  Otherwise the Page rendering would be stopped while the JS files were loaded and the intializations done.