[theme-reviewers] Minified CSS?

[Bruce Wampler]

Just a question about providing Minified CSS files - and specifically the
main style.css file (with the standard header still included, of course!)

For my theme, if I could provide a minified style.css file, it would result
in about 15K total size saving. In the context of an image, that isn't
much, but it is also not a trivial amount. (And I really not looking for a
debate on why I my theme has a 50K style file - it isn't that hard to do
with lots of comments and responsive rules.)

As per common practice, one would provide two versions of each minified
file: style.css, and style.dev.css. In my tests, the minified file works
exactly the same, and doesn't seem to give the Themes admin page any issues
since the standard header is there.

For my theme in particular, I see two advantages to a minified style.css:

1. It is smaller. (Some of us still have 2G mobile phone service, believe
it or not, and even 15K can help on a slow phone connection.)

2. It would discourage users from editing style.css, which is generally a
terrible idea - but especially for my theme. The designer either needs to
use built-in options from the theme to add custom CSS, or build a child
theme.

Reasons not to allow:
1. Human unreadable - theme reviewer would have to trust the minified
version is the same as the .dev full version. The .dev version or a browser
developer tool can be used to examine the rules.
2. Most themes probably don't have 50K style files, so the savings would
not usually be all that significant.

I don't remember seeing this discussed before, and wondered if it is a
permissible thing to do. I know themes and plugins commonly provide dev and
minified version of .js files, seems .css isn't that much different.

Bruce Wampler
Weaver Theme
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