I think there is a general misunderstanding about when these tools should be used, and how they can benefit your site overall. The issue for most people is that once they have optimized their CSS, it is completely unreadable and impossible to update. Optimizing the local development copy of your CSS isn’t really the right way to use the tool.
The idea of CSS Tweak is to provide optimization for deployment. So, this means you would keep a development copy of all your CSS files on your local machine. Then, when you are ready to upload your site, run the CSS through CSS Tweak, and upload the optimized files. This way, you have a perfectly maintainable copy on your own machine, and an identical copy on the server, only fully optimized, reducing your site load times and bandwidth usage.
That’s all really, I just thought I’d talk about this briefly, as it seems to be a recurring question. I don’t think I made this all that clear when I first released CSS Tweak, so really it’s my own fault! Has anyone been using CSS Tweak in this fashion already?
3 responses so far ↓
Tony // October 4, 2006 at 2:50 pm
Yeah, deployment only …got it.
You had some numb-nuts complaining it didn’t design a website for him?
Kai Pettersen // September 24, 2007 at 3:04 pm
Really a great tool. Full tank for me. = 10 points out of 10. Thanks!
Sergei Muller // July 10, 2008 at 10:09 am
It looks like the link to the CSSTweak download has been discontinued.
I can’t access it from Apple Widget directory or from your site.
Such a pity