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Magic: Frontend performance for all themes

2 Min. ReadDevelopment

Howdy perfers!

This week’s Webperf Wednesday is short and sweet, just like your page loads when you install this new module that enhances any Drupal theme. Magic is a set of frontend performance and development workflow tools for themers. Previously many themes had their own advanced settings — many of which did the same things as other themes, but they all did it a little differently — no more with Magic.

Built by Web Chef Ian Carrico and Sam Richard (of Aurora) with contributions from Sebastian Siemssen (of Omega), Magic was built by the desire to work together to make all themes better, instead of siloing improvements within specific themes.

What’s inside?

Performance features:

  • Enhancements to CSS Aggregation
  • Exclude CSS files from being included
  • Option to move JavaScript to the footer
  • Backport of Drupal 8 JavaScript handling
  • Exclude JS files from being included

Development goodies

  • Rebuild Theme Registry on Page Reload
  • Display a Viewport Width indicator
  • Display an indicator with classes applied to the HTML. Useful when used in conjunction with Modernizr
  • Export theme settings

That last one is super important, as it makes Drupal themes a little more DRY. With Magic, you can take your settings from one theme to another — or to another site completely — because they’re fully exportable. Have two different projects, and want similar asset output despite one being Omega and one being Zen? No problem, just export!

Note: the full import process has yet to land, but it’s coming very soon.

If you have an awesome trick that you always rely on during theming, open an issue and propose it to Magic. They’d love to hear from you.

Give it a shot today! Go to drupal.org/project/magic