HTML Viewer

What is HTML and how to improve yours

HTML stands for HyperText Markup Language and is the standard markup language used to create web pages and web applications. It is the foundation of the internet and has been one of the most used languages for decades. HTML is the language that defines how a web page should be presented.

Due to its role at the core of the web, the amount of HTML code grows quickly, making it hard to maintain.

With all these files floating around, it also becomes a mess very quickly. Fortunately, there are tools like the EasyRetro HTML Viewer that can beautify and minify your code, making it easier to read and navigate.

Main HTML optimization techniques

In this section, we will focus on the two main techniques applied to HTML maintenance:

• Code formatting, or HTML beautify
• Code minification, or HTML minify

HTML beautify

HTML Beautify is a technique used to help developers format HTML documents in a consistent way. It helps developers ensure all their code is up to the latest formatting standards and allows them to clean up messy code.

Also, it becomes easier to find errors in formatted HTML files, saving debug time and improving the overall page quality.

HTML minify

Whilst HTML beautify aims to ensure a good code structure, often increasing file size, HTML minification is used to reduce the size of HTML code. It aims to ensure faster page load speeds, especially on mobile devices and slow connections.

It is done by removing unnecessary spaces, line breaks, characters, and other elements. Those characters could negatively impact the page load without being used at all on the UI (User Interface). Saving those bytes will improve your UX (User Experience).

When to use each technique?

You may have noticed that the techniques are, in fact, opposites. Indeed, you can't use both at the same time. So, when should one use each of them?You may have noticed that the techniques are, in fact, opposites. Indeed, you can't use both at the same time. So, when should one use each of them?

A good development workflow would apply both techniques during different processes.

Code formatting needs to run alongside a version control system to maintain the code base. It will ensure that your HTML code can be easily updated and will follow good practices. A good tool to achieve this is Prettier.

When generating the files for a production deployment, you should apply the Code minification process, reducing the size of your files and improving the loading experience for your users. It can be achieved by applying tools like Node Minify or HTML Minifier Terser.

Check out some other tools from EasyRetro

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