Important – read this before you install Speedster
1. Please ensure you read and understand all instructions
If you do not understand something in the set-up instructions provided, do not install Fooman Speedster. Instead, contact your Magento developer and ask them to install the extension for you. If all steps are not followed correctly, the installation of Fooman Speedster could fail and generate errors on your site.
2. Install Fooman Speedster first on your test site, before installing it on your live site
If any errors do occur, it is far preferable to complete our troubleshooting instructions on your test site so your live site will remain unaffected.
Fooman Speedster is a free extension which has been tested with the default Magento themes and successfully installed on thousands of Magento stores. However, there is always a risk that minifying and combining Javascript files can produce Javascript errors.
We do not recommend using Fooman Speedster without thorough testing on a test site if:
- Significant Javascript customisation work has been done on your store and the added non-default Javascript files do not follow best practice Javascript (you can test with http://jslint.com/)
- Your store already contains minified files (including files minified by standard Magento). All Javascript on your site should be un-minified before installing Fooman Speedster - combining files that have been minified separately is bad news!
- Your store uses Jquery (or has extensions installed which use Jquery) - although a workaround is provided, almost 100% of reported errors with Fooman Speedster are from stores which also use Jquery
- You are not using Magento’s default theme
3. Always test your site for existing Javascript errors before installing Fooman Speedster
Fooman Speedster relies on all Javascript on your store being completely error free. If your store contains existing Javascript errors, these will be magnified when installing Speedster and could cause issues with your store's frontend.
The Speedster self-test does not include testing for existing Javascript errors on your site. It is important to do this separately before installing Fooman Speedster (you can test with http://jslint.com/). If you identify any existing Javascript errors on your site, ensure these are completely fixed before installing Fooman Speedster.
4. Ensure your site meets all system requirements
Fooman Speedster works out of the box using an Apache platform run on Linux. In addition, system requirements are:
- Mod_rewrite (a standard Apache module installed by default on most Linux servers) must be enabled
- .htaccess must be supported
- CSS images must be available under the same domain as the store
- No existing Javascript errors on the store
Several developers have also successfully installed Fooman Speedster on different platforms by adapting the installation process. For further reading see the ISAPI2 and Nginx threads.