Chirpy - an awesome Visual Studio add-in
While upgrading to the latest .NET and MVC versions I took the time to try out the latest beta of Chirpy by Evan Nagle as well. So far I'm really pleased with it - it works wonders with Visual Studio 2010, providing an easy way to edit Javascript, CSS and LessCSS files without having to think about regenerating a minified or compressed version manually.
Here I'm having it compress a Javascript file using Google's Closure Compiler with the simple setting. I haven't even tried LessCSS or the mashing feature yet, but having it merge these files for you seems like a neat bonus when looking at maximizing web site performance.
The reason I even stumbled upon it was after reading this Coding Horror post about what's wrong with CSS. Jeff Atwood mentioned a few options and LessCSS seemed like something I've wanted for a long time. There's a .NET port called .less and while poking around - Chirpy appeared.
by Oskar Duveborn - 3 revisionsPublished 2010-07-08, updated 2010-07-08