Shrink-ray-current is a Node.js compression middleware designed for Express/Connect applications, providing advanced content encoding capabilities beyond standard gzip. Currently stable at version 4.1.3 (last updated April 2021), it's a maintained fork of the abandoned `shrink-ray` package, ensuring its dependencies are up-to-date. Its key differentiators include built-in support for Brotli and Zopfli (the latter specifically for asynchronous compression of static assets), alongside traditional deflate and gzip. The middleware leverages ETag caching to significantly boost performance for static files, claiming to be 3x faster and using a quarter of the CPU time compared to the standard `compression` middleware in benchmarks, by utilizing higher quality compression algorithms for cached content. Releases appear to be driven by dependency updates or minor bug fixes rather than a fixed schedule.
npm install shrink-ray-currentVerified import paths — ran on the pinned version, not inferred.
Demonstrates integrating `shrink-ray-current` as Express/Connect middleware for both dynamic and (simulated) static content, showing basic setup and enabling compression for routes.
Manually install these packages as optional dependencies in your project: `npm install --save-optional iltorb node-zopfli-es`.
Always use `npm install shrink-ray-current` and `require('shrink-ray-current')` or `import 'shrink-ray-current'`. Do not use `shrink-ray`.Install the necessary build tools as per Node.js documentation for your operating system, or ensure your deployment environment supports native module compilation. For example, on Ubuntu: `sudo apt-get install python make g++`.
Be aware of Zopfli's specific use case. If you need maximum compression for static assets, ensure ETags are enabled for those responses. For general dynamic content, Brotli/gzip will be used based on client `Accept-Encoding`.
Install the missing optional dependencies: `npm install --save-optional iltorb node-zopfli-es`.
Ensure you have the Node.js native build toolchain installed. This usually includes Python, Make, and a C++ compiler (e.g., Visual Studio Build Tools on Windows, Xcode Command Line Tools on macOS, or `build-essential` on Debian/Ubuntu).