[SOLVED] MVC 4 Styles.Render & Scripts.Render Clarification

MVC 4 Styles.Render & Scripts.Render Clarification

I'm using ASP.NET MVC 4 with Bootstrap and I've noticed that my project is a little bit different from a lot of articles and tutorials about "building your site with Bootstrap", they keep mention the use of minified files of Javascript and CSS (bootstrap.min.css, bootstrap.min.js) and I have only the files without the min although the files are in the directory.

I read about these files but I don't get the point of it, maybe somebody can clarify the use of them and if I need to add reference to them in my bundle config ?

My code looks like this :

_Layout.cshtml:

<head>
    <meta charset="utf-8" />
    <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0">
    <title>@ViewBag.Title - My ASP.NET Application</title>
    @Styles.Render("~/Content/css")
    @Scripts.Render("~/bundles/modernizr")

</head>
<body>
    <div class="navbar navbar-inverse navbar-fixed-top">
        <div class="container">
            <div class="navbar-header">
                <button type="button" class="navbar-toggle" data-toggle="collapse" data-target=".navbar-collapse">
                    <span class="icon-bar"></span>
                    <span class="icon-bar"></span>
                    <span class="icon-bar"></span>
                </button>

                <a href="@Url.Action("Index", "Home")" class="navbar-brand">
                    <span class="glyphicon glyphicon-filter"></span> SelectorIT - OnLine
                </a>
            </div>
            <div class="navbar-collapse collapse">
                <ul class="nav navbar-nav">
                    <li>@Html.ActionLink("Home", "Index", "Home")</li>
                    <li>@Html.ActionLink("About", "About", "Home")</li>
                    <li>@Html.ActionLink("Contact", "Contact", "Home")</li>
                </ul>
                @Html.Partial("_LoginPartial")
            </div>
        </div>
    </div>
    <div class="container body-content">
        @RenderBody()
        <hr />
        <footer>
            <p>&copy; @DateTime.Now.Year - My ASP.NET Application</p>
        </footer>
    </div>

    @Scripts.Render("~/bundles/jquery")
    @Scripts.Render("~/bundles/bootstrap")
    @RenderSection("scripts", required: false)
</body>

And my BundleConfig.cs:

public class BundleConfig
{
    // For more information on bundling, visit http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=301862
    public static void RegisterBundles(BundleCollection bundles)
    {
        bundles.Add(new ScriptBundle("~/bundles/jquery").Include(
                    "~/Scripts/jquery-{version}.js"));

        bundles.Add(new ScriptBundle("~/bundles/jqueryval").Include(
                    "~/Scripts/jquery.validate*"));

        // Use the development version of Modernizr to develop with and learn from. Then, when you're
        // ready for production, use the build tool at http://modernizr.com to pick only the tests you need.
        bundles.Add(new ScriptBundle("~/bundles/modernizr").Include(
                    "~/Scripts/modernizr-*"));

        bundles.Add(new ScriptBundle("~/bundles/bootstrap").Include(
                  "~/Scripts/bootstrap.js",
                  "~/Scripts/respond.js"));

        bundles.Add(new StyleBundle("~/Content/css").Include(
                  "~/Content/bootstrap.css",
                  "~/Content/site.css"));

        // Set EnableOptimizations to false for debugging. For more information,
        // visit http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=301862
        BundleTable.EnableOptimizations = true;
    }
}

Two questions I have :

What am I missing when I don't have reference to bootstrap.min.css, bootstrap.min.js ?
Should I add reference to those files in the:

bundles.Add(new StyleBundle("~/Content/css").Include()

Solution

The min files remove all unnecessary characters to make the file smaller. This decreases loading time. Source.

If you are building a small personal project, performance might not have a high priority. If you are building the site for someone else or an organization, I would suggest using the min versions.