# Assets Management

## What are assets?

A web page consists of a base HTML document and any additional files it may include, such as stylesheets, scripts, images and fonts. We will refer to these additional files as **assets**.

![2015-05-25\_103425.jpg](/files/-LD6N2--9_6OcUbyXroh)

**Most of the focus in XOOPS asset management is on stylesheet and script assets.**

![2015-05-25\_103513.jpg](/files/-LD6N2-3dlnhYQ2j3gTC)

Assets are a very important part of the user experience. For today's rich, highly interactive web applications, the asset performance may be more significant than the backend application and database performance.

**Assets Performance Factors**

There are several factors that influence the performance of assets:

* Asset size
* Number of files
* Latency
  * Network speed
    * Connection set up an tear down
    * Transfer rate
    * Currency limits
  * Client capacity
    * Processing power/load
    * Memory
    * Cache speed\* 

In order to address these issues, and to minimize the impact, there are different strategies for Assets Management:

* Minimize file sizes
* Combine files to reduce network connections
* Serve assets as static files to maximize caching
* Avoid concurrency bottlenecks
  * Assets that include other assets when loaded

Of course, there are different strategies for Development, and different for Deployment:

| Develop / Debug                                                            | Deployment Focus                    |
| -------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ----------------------------------- |
| Easy to read and edit is essential                                         | Eliminate formatting and whitespace |
| Separate files are easier to work with and may come from different sources | Combine files to eliminate latency  |

**Asset management solves the development vs. deployment dilemma by using the exact same sources for both needs.**


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