Has anyone utilized CSS image sprites?

well, you wouldn't want to put everything in one file - the idea is to put more commonly accessed files in one image file so there are less server requests and images are effectively downloaded in parallel instead of one after another. There's no need to download every image if the page doesn't use that image. Regardless, the vbulletin icon, smiley, and other image system wouldn't easily support sprites without modifying some things.

Originally Posted by Mert Gökçeimam

You can set it within httpd.conf or .htaccess

Following rules will work

Code:

<IfModule mod_expires.c>
ExpiresActive on
ExpiresByType image/jpg "access plus 7 days"
ExpiresByType image/gif "access plus 7 days"
ExpiresByType image/jpeg "access plus 7 days"
ExpiresByType image/png "access plus 7 days"
ExpiresByType text/css "access plus 72 hours"
ExpiresDefault "access plus 24 hours"
</IfModule>

If you add these to httpd.conf , just tail access_log and visit same page twice. On your second visit you'll receive httpd status 304 for cached files

Any instructions on how to achieve this on a Windows IIS7 server?

Thanks

in your web.config’s system.webServer section

Code:

<configuration>
     <location path="/">
       <system.webserver>    
         <caching>
           <profiles>
             <add varybyquerystring="*"location="Any" duration="24:00:00" policy="CacheForTimePeriod" extension=".gif">
########- extra here for more file types ###########
           </profiles>
    </caching>
       </system.webserver>
   </location>
</configuration>

In reply to the original question:
"Has anyone utilized CSS image sprites?"

Yes, we did. You'll find a vB4 addon here:
United-Forum CSS Sprites - vBulletin.org Forum

features:
- fully automated sprite and css definition creation based on your forum style
- improved our Page Speed Online from 77/100 to 96/100 (version 0.6.0) on FORUMHOME
- http requests down to 16 from ~55
- page load time down to 0.67s from 2.11s (my connection - numbers will differ)

livedemo:
United-Forum (> 2.000.000 posts - sprites running in every style)


Regards Mooff

Is there a vb3 version? I think a lot of big board owners, including myself, are still running vb3.

Unfortunately not. :( We do not own a vb3 board anymore and the addon makes use of the vb4 stylevar system.

If someone wants to port our addon to vBulletin 3.8.x, we will appreciate it.

But you are not allowed to charge money for the addon and the branding needs to be intact (but you can extend it).

So if someone wants to port our addon to vBulletin 3.8.x, feel free to do it, we (and i think the vBulletin community) will glady help.

Mooff that's a seriously impressive accomplishment. Consider your mod tagged for future consideration.

This goes against my own frugal instincts, but if the final release lives up to what you're promising then I think there are more than a few webmasters who would be willing to pay (a small fee) for something like this. (if that doesn't work, you can license the code to Internet Brands).

In all seriousness, IB's justification for reneging on the promise of a fully sprited vb4 – that it's "too complicated for the average user" – seems a few hundred pixels thinner now.

In any event here's another handy tool for spriting. Should be part of any admin's survival kit, along with SEOQuake, FireBug, etc.:

SpriteMe