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Serving YUI Files from Yahoo! Servers

YUI: Configuration and Hosting

Configure | History | Terms of Use | Filepaths | Aggregate (Rollup) Files | Combo Handling

YUI Dependency Configurator:

Choose the YUI components you want to use on your page; beneath the button toolbars, the text area will update with the sorted dependency list required to power your desired components. By default, we'll use aggregrate (rollup) files where possible and serve the files from yui.yahooapis.com. You can allow rollups and/or set your own base URL path if you choose. The Combine All JS Files option, on by default, generates a URL for your JavaScript files that combines them all into a single file, reducing HTTP requests.

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Options base:
YUI JavaScript Core
YUI JavaScript Utilities
YUI Aggregate (Rollup) Files
YUI CSS Packages
YUI User Interface Widgets
YUI Developer Tools

Background of YUI Hosting by Yahoo!

With the release of YUI version 2.2.0 in Februrary, 2007, Yahoo! opened up free YUI hosting from the Yahoo! network (via yui.yahooapis.com) to all YUI implementers. For more about this decision and its rationale, please refer to "Free Hosting of YUI Files from Yahoo!" on the YUIBlog. Beginning with version 2.2.0, all YUI releases have been posted to yui.yahooapis.com.

YUI consists of three classes of static resources: JavaScript files, CSS files (providing a default visual treatment for some UI controls), and images (supporting the default visual treatment).

If appropriate to your application's deployment and its security/privacy regime, you may choose to use Yahoo!'s network to serve YUI files. To do so, you need simply to reference YUI JavaScript and CSS files in their appropriate locations on Yahoo! servers. When you do this, image files referenced within the default YUI CSS files will be served from Yahoo!'s network as well. Yahoo! specifies no service-level agreement for availability of these files, but the filepaths specified below are the same ones Yahoo! developers use for many YUI deployments — Yahoo! hosting is optimized for fast response times, good cache hit rates, and the use of gzip compression during HTTP transport.

Hosted Files:

When you download the YUI Library, the YUI build directory contains three types of JavaScript files for each component:

  1. Minified (e.g. "animation-min.js"): The minified file has been stripped of comments, white space, and some line breaks to make it as compact as possible.
  2. Standard (e.g. "animation.js"): The fully commented file, formatted for readability.
  3. Debug (e.g. "animation-debug.js"): The fully commented file, including debug statements that output to the Logger interface if present.

Terms of Use:

Yahoo!'s hosting of YUI files is covered by all applicable sections of the Terms of Use governing Yahoo! APIs; your use of YUI files from Yahoo!'s servers constitutes an agreement to those terms. Access of YUI files from Yahoo!'s servers will be recorded in Yahoo!'s Web traffic logs. Please be sure that this usage is fully consistent with your own user privacy agreement before deploying YUI files from Yahoo! servers as part of your application.

Filepaths for YUI Library Component Files as of Version 2.5.2:

Individual files for each component are available for inclusion via the following <script> and <link> tags (note: use cn.yui.yahoapis.com if most of your users are in mainland China):

Note: If you are using the Container Family of controls but are not using Tooltip, Panel, Dialog, or SimpleDialog, you may substitute container-min.js with the smaller container_core-min.js file:

Filepaths for Aggregate Files:

YUI is distributed with four aggregate files that package components commonly deployed together. You can read more about each of these aggregate files in the README documents that accompany them in the YUI distribution:

  1. reset-fonts-grids.css and reset-fonts.css: As their names suggest, these files combine components of the YUI CSS foundation.
  2. yahoo-dom-event.js: Combines the three files the comprise the YUI Core: the YAHOO Global Object, the Dom Collection, and the Event Utility. These three files are almost always used in concert and are a shared requirement for most YUI implementations.
  3. yuiloader-dom-event.js: In addition to the YUI Core files included in yahoo-dom-event.js, yuiloader-dom-event.js adds the YUI Loader and the Get Utility. Between them, these two additional packages allow you to lazy-load any additional YUI dependencies your implementation requires. This is the perfect base aggregate for situations where you want the library's core on the page and want the further ability to bring in any additional YUI component via script.
  4. utilities.js: The utilities.js aggregate combines the Yahoo Global Object, Dom Collection, Event Utility, Element Utility, Connection Manager, Drag & Drop Utility and Animation Utility. Use this file to reduce HTTP requests whenever you are including more than three of its constituent components.
  5. skin.css: The skin.css aggregate combines all of the YUI Sam Skin CSS for all of the YUI controls in a single file. Where you are using several UI controls on the same page, the aggregate CSS file allows you to get all of their style information in a single file. See the Understanding Skinning article for more information.

The aggregate files can be included on your page using the following the following <script> and <link> tags:

Combo Handling — Combining All JS Files to Reduce HTTP Requests:

The Configurator allows you to go beyond pre-built rollups by automatcially rolling all of your JavaScript resources into a single file. By using the "Combine All JS Files" options, you will only make one HTTP request for YUI JS. For almost all implementations, this will result in improved performance. For the rationale behind reducing HTTP requests, please see Performance Research, Part 1: What the 80/20 Rule Tells Us about Reducing HTTP Requests by Tenni Theurer on YUIBlog.

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