Setup

It's quite easy to setup HtmlStapler, easy like 1-2-3. Actually, it's only 1-2 :)

Step #1

Register HtmlStaplerFilter filter in web.xml:

    ...
        <filter>
            <filter-name>htmlstapler</filter-name>
            <filter-class>jodd.htmlstapler.HtmlStaplerFilter</filter-class>
        </filter>
        <filter-mapping>
            <filter-name>htmlstapler</filter-name>
            <url-pattern>/*</url-pattern>
        </filter-mapping>
    ...

Step #2

Configure filter behavior either with filter init parameters or by extending the filter class and configure it manually in Java.

HtmlStaplerFilter has one bonus feature included: HTML stripping!

And that is all!

Configuration

HtmlStapler is quite flexible and so is the filter. Configuration is located in filter class and in HtmlStaplerBundlesManager. You can configure the following parameters (i.e. properties):

Filter configuration

• enabled - turns the filter and HtmlStapler on and off.
• stripHtml - bonus feature (!): while processing HTML page, HtmlStapler can also minimize the HTML by removing the unnecessary spaces. For this we use Lagarto StripHtmlTagAdapter.
• resetOnStart - if existing bundle files should be deleted on server start. Default value is true.
• useGzip - default is false; indicates if bundles should be compressed using GZIP, for even more speed (more in the next page:)
• cacheMaxAge - value for cache response header: max-age (in the seconds). By default it's set to one month. If set to 0, header parameter will not be set.
• strategy - the name of the strategy.

HtmlStaplerBundlesManager configuration

• bundleFolder - path to bundles folder where bundles files will be created. By default it is a system temp folder, but it is recommended to use Lagarto-specific folder.
• staplerPath - the path for stapler links, jodd-bundle by default.
• sortResources - flag that specifies if resource links should be sorted before bundle id (i.e. a digest) is created.
• downloadLocal - by default, local resources are copied from file system, using web root folder. If this does not work, local files can be downloaded instead.
• localAddressAndPort - local address and port that will be used for downloading local resources if specified so.
• notFoundExceptionEnabled - if some resource is not found (by developers mistake) this flag defines if the exception should be thrown (default behavior), or just warn message should be logged.
• localFilesEncoding - encoding of local files, UTF-8 by default.

And more…

As said, HtmlStapler is easy to extend.

One nice idea might be to use FileLFUCache for loading bundle files in HtmlStaplerServlet. You can do this easily by overriding sendBundleFile().

Another idea might be to integrate javascript/css compressors - just override onResourceContent().

Consider to add a 'development' flag that disables HtmlStapler during development (enable property).

Not satisfied with the digest creation? Override createDigest() and use your own.

If you are not sure which strategy to use, go with pragmatic RESOURCE_ONLY.