Introducing Nettuts+ Builder – Version 2
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Introducing Nettuts+ Builder – Version 2

on Dec 17th 2011 with 38 comments
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We’re pleased to announce the release of Version 2 of Nettuts+ Builder, a Mac app that handles the process of concatenating and compressing your assets, optimizing your CSS by running it through Prefixr.com, and uploading to your FTP server.

What Exactly Does it Do?

Intended for small projects and demos, all you need to do is drag your project folder onto Builder’s icon in the menu bar. Once you do so, it will:

  • Concatenate all scripts that are contained within <!-- js --> .. <!-- end js --> comments.
  • Concatenate all stylesheets that are contained within <!-- css --> .. <!-- end css --> comments.
  • Compress all CSS, JavaScript, and HTML files.
  • Run your CSS through Prefixr.com
  • Organize folder structures, if necessary
  • Optionally upload to a directory on your server.

See it in Action

Availability

Nettuts+ Builder V2 is currently available free to all Tuts+ Premium members.

 
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I'm the editor of Nettuts+, and love making the process of building for the web as easy as possible. Also, I'm finishing up my latest book on Laravel Testing! If you want be friends, say hi on Twitter.  

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  • w1sh

    Out of curiosity, is it incredibly difficult to port this to PC? I can’t afford a Mac but would still like to take advantage of these really nice apps. :(

    • w1sh

      Yeah, just finished watching this. I’m thoroughly jealous. :(

      Very nice little app Jeff.

      - This should definitely become a configurable Sublime Text 2 plugin somehow with a hotkey. Could you imagine working and compressing/uploading to server with a hotkey? :o****

      - Does it have a way to reverse compression? For instance, if I want to download a local copy of an app from a remote server, would I be able to and have a legible version straight out of the box or would I need to run is through some external uncompressors? If so, it’d be very neat if this was added in a future release.

      - Not sure if you can tap into it or not, but it’d be cool if it ran through SmushIt as well and compressed images in your project.

      • http://www.jeffrey-way.com Jeffrey Way
        Author

        Yeah – I’d love to see a ST2 plugin. If anyone’s ready this…. :)

        About the reverse compression, the idea is that you wouldn’t edit the files on your server. Instead, you’d always work with your local files that remain the same.

        Alternatively, most editors these days have a beautify function that will take care of this.

      • FreelanceWebdesignerNL

        Hey Jeffrey,

        I have a issue with the builder it returns empty style.css, see my comment on Codecanyon, wonderd if you can help me out.

      • w1sh

        I feel ya on the reverse compression thing. I was just saying that if I “Builder” it to my web server then go to another computer where I don’t already have a local copy (but DO have Builder) and go to drag it offline, it’d be nice if I could drag it into Builder to uncompress it or something. Either way, it’s not really a huge deal. Just nitpicking.

        “I’d love to see a ST2 plugin. If anyone’s *reading this”
        But… aren’t you a ST2 plugin author in your own right? >:)

    • http://www.jeffrey-way.com Jeffrey Way
      Author

      I’d love to find a talented Windows dev to work with us on Nettuts+ apps. I’m happy to pay for conversion tools; it’s just a matter of finding somebody who has both the talent and time to create these.

      • w1sh

        I, as well as many others, would drop $5 on a PC version of this plugin $10 if it’s a ST2 plugin. :)

      • http://www.wdonline.com Jeremy McPeak

        *cough*

      • w1sh

        Jeremy writes books. Jeremy, why not send Jeff an email and actually ask for the position? It’d be awesome if Nettuts released free/premium apps for Mac/PC all the time. :)

      • Florian

        What about coding it with a multi OS platform like Java or Titanium? I’d love to use this on Linux, but I can understand it wouldn’t pay off for net.tuts.

      • http://www.wdonline.com Jeremy McPeak

        In actuality, time is an issue for me. Lots o’ stuff to do.

      • JasonDavis

        I would like to see a program that does all this, plus optimizes images. I can do everything here with Phing but would be awesome to have something to easily do what smush.it does for images and to wrap it all into a single program would be amazing and then add command line support so Phing, Ant, Sublimetext2, Ton of others can use it easily.

        I know I can currently do most of this with Phing and I just really need the image part. Also some users don’t realize that Sublimetext can run Phing and any other Build scripts

      • BEBEN

        I’m just curious if you would accepted one whos developing it in Java, so its Multi-Plattform available. For example you could use JavaFX 2 for beeing pixel perfect.

      • http://www.jeffrey-way.com Jeffrey Way
        Author

        Jeremy – you always have the first option to these projects…just as long as you can realistically get it done within around 60 days.

  • http://www.ben10cargames.org maria

    yes really nice effort, while health

  • http://www.keramicke-plocice.net Keramika Kupatila

    An excellent solution for optimizing css

  • Rafael Fragoso

    Jeffrey, what application you use to organize Finder windows?
    Thanks ^^

  • Greg

    Anything simillar for linux? :)

  • Benn

    Is there a plan to get Builder to work within wordpress, if this is possible im not sure? Maybe just to compress a theme?

  • http://MyQuest4Freedom.wordpress.com Pat

    Super cool Jeff! Too bad I don’t have a mac :-( Thanks for prefixr.com/ though!

  • Brian Frichette

    Has the app been updated for paid customers on codecanyon.net? And if not, why? I haven’t used this since I bought it b/c I was waiting for the promised features.

    Thanks.

    • http://www.jeffrey-way.com Jeffrey Way
      Author

      It’s in the queue right now.

      • Brian Frichette

        Thank you for the reply, and for the app. :)

  • http://ek.alphaschildren.org Ethan Kramer

    I bought builder v1 from code canyon. How can I upgrade to v2 without buying it or becoming a tuts+ premium member?

  • http://twitter.com/drale2k Drazen Mokic

    Any plans on adding Haml, LESS and CoffeScript compilers? Adding JSLint as an opt-in would be a nice to have but not totally necessary for me.

  • http://www.weblancer.in Gaurav Chandra

    Was this made in Objective C?

  • David

    Awesome! I bought your Phing tutorial series but I had a lot of trouble installing and running Phing, so I eventually gave up on it. However this works much better! I will be subscribing soon!

  • Grom

    Don’t understand how to use build scripts with NOT single page sites.. like php sites.

  • http://net.toututs.com Wael Amine Bourglay

    Nettuts+ Builder is very cool, I hope to see a Windows version soon.

  • kankaro

    It’s greatly cool if there’s a windows version of this app… nice work Mr. Way :D

  • JesperA

    Nice little app but it can compress the HTML a little more. No need for a space between elements, now it compresses to , should be:

    • http://www.jeffrey-way.com Jeffrey Way
      Author

      We’ve made the HTML compression optional. The app should have an update available.

  • Sean Turtle

    I used to use this, but stopped using it. Forgot why, and after downloading the new version, it triggered my memory – it doesn’t work on my Mac anymore. I’m running 10.6.8. Anyone else having issues?

    • http://www.jeffrey-way.com Jeffrey Way
      Author

      It’s Lion specific now.

  • Antonio

    It could be good to be able to set the css and js path :)

  • http://www.creativemanner.com ozgur coruhlu

    Just got the update, awesome work as always Jeff.

  • Chris Dyer

    I would love to make a Windows version of Builder, have emailed Jeffrey about it.