CSS Super Scrub

CSS Super Scrub says it will

significantly reduce the size and complexity of your CSS by programmatically stripping unneeded content, stripping redundant calls, and intelligently grouping the remaining element names.

I gave it a try with the style sheet for this site. With just the option Indent CSS selected, it saved 4.7% on the Web Teacher style sheet.

I tried it on my home page at vdebolt.com. There CSS Super Scrub, with only the option Indent CSS selected, came back with a file that is 2.8% larger.

Same choices: I tried it on my Phoebe Snow site. This time it was 6.7% smaller. I tried it on a site a made years ago for artist Helen Gwinn. This site was created so long ago, I thought the CSS would really need help. But no, CSS Super Scrub added 1.8% to the file size.

I tried it on another site I built several years ago for jazz vocalist Mady Kaye. This time CSS Super Scrub hit the jackpot, coming back with a file size 22.3% smaller. Even so, looking at the Mady Kaye CSS now, all these years after creating it, I can see a number of places where it could be cleaned up even more than what the scrubber suggested.

I went to a site I designed more recently, New Mexico Mountain Club. Here, the scrubber saved me 8.5% in file size.

My conclusion about this tool is that it depends on your original CSS. A reduction in file size is not always a sure thing. Before you copy and use their version of your CSS, see if it’s better or worse. And, take a look at old CSS with new eyes. You’ll probably see things you realize you should have done differently, even without the Scrubber offering you suggestions.

5 thoughts on “CSS Super Scrub”

  1. If I had selected the option to eliminate all the whitespace, I’m sure it would have done even better with my various tests. Did you select that option?

  2. No, I wasn’t concerned on size as much as cleaning my CSS file up.

    I like to leave my white space in, in case people want to view the CSS. Besides, with the size of photos I shove into my weblogs, whatever I saved wouldn’t make much of a difference.

    Shelleys last blog post.. Tripping into New Year

  3. I love CSS and knows it’s important and speed as compared to the HTML. But at starting I have wrote many CSS files, Supre Scrub help me to organize and shrink them.
    Great

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