Many jQuery plugins have the following directory structures:
/<plugin name>
../css
../images
../js
The CSS files usually have relative links to the images in them. What I want to do is include these plugins in the Rails Way under the Asset Pipeline, and hopefully that doesn't involve having to renamed the file references to remove the relative links. Is there such a Rails Way?
Could it also be that it's overkill to include an already-minified jQuery plugin in the Asset Pipeline?
You should try to add your assets to the load path which is the recommended way, as far as I know. If the application you're running has the assets-pipeline activated, it should find your assets after expanding the path in your application.rb
config.assets.paths << Rails.root.join("plugins/plugin_name/assets/")
Not shure, if this is what you asked for but if not, you should check: http://guides.rubyonrails.org/asset_pipeline.html#asset-organization
Remeber to restart your server
I had the same issue and also tried to find "the Rails way" to do this. And this is what I ended up with at the end of the day:
As Rob already mentioned:
vendor/assets is for assets that are owned by outside entities, such as code for JavaScript plugins and CSS frameworks.
Source: 2.1 Asset Organization
Lets take a practical example: using the jquery_datepicker gem (Note: we had to use a workaround because of this issue: bundle pack does not work with git sources).
1) Installing the gem (pretty straighforward):
cd vendor/gems
git clone https://github.com/albertopq/jquery_datepicker.git
2) Add this to your Gemfile
gem 'jquery_datepicker', :path => 'vendor/gems/jquery_datepicker'
3) Install a jquery-ui theme
From ThemeRoller select a theme, check Datepicker and Slider
and the jQUery version
Download and extract the content of the package
CSS/images from the css/theme-name folder move them:
jquery-ui-1.8.xx.custom.css to app/vendor/stylesheets/
the images folder to app/vendor/images/ (yes, move the entire folder images so you end up with something like this app/vendor/images/images/ui-icons_256x240.png
i18n from the development-bundle/ui/i18n folder (optional) move them to:
Create a folder i18n under app/vendor/javascripts/
move jquery.ui.datepicker-xx.js to this folder app/vendor/javascripts/i18n/
make sure the i18n folder is loaded so include in application.js
//= require_directory ./i18n
vendor/assets is loaded automatically AFAIK so you don't have to include the path in the asset pipeline.
I'd like to see how others are approaching this, it's a very good question.
I think the reason you haven't received an answer is because it's kind of unclear what you're asking. Are you asking if it's overkill to put your plugins in the asset pipeline? Are you asking if you have to rename file references?
I always put all my jquery plugins in my asset pipeline. Overkill or not, there all in one place and they only get compiled once so even if compiling them takes longer, it doesn't affect my app.
Related
I need to develop a plugin for Moodle, and i need to have some js and css files in plugin. But i have the next problem - how to work with them from installed plugin? Of course, i can hardcode their path via to moodle structure, but it's a very dirty and bad way. Also, i know that i can place all js and css code inline, but i think that it's a bad decision too. Is there a built-in way to serve assets from plugin? I tried to find it in documentations, but found nothing.
Thanks
I assume you want to know how to include CSS and JS files into your plugin.
You can include a JS file via the command:
$PAGE->requires->js( /relative/path/your_script.js');
You can then call a JS function once the page has been downloaded with the command:
$PAGE->requires->js_init_call ( your_JS_function_name, array_of_parameters_here, bool: on DOM ready);
For example:
$PAGE->requires->js_init_call('init', array($USER->lang), true);
Be sure to make the $PAGE available with global $PAGE;, first.
Your CSS file can be named styles.css and put into the root folder of your plugin. The file will be automatically read by the system and included. It will take precedence over (will overwrite the settings of) the system CSS files. After that you will have to reload the theme caches.
I followed some instructions, which I'm unable to locate again, to move my plugins to the "lib" directory.
So I have this structure now:
/lib
/lib/plugins
/lib/plugins/plugin1
/lib/plugins/plugin1/lib
/lib/plugins/plugin1/lib/plugin1.rb
I had tried this in my application.rb:
config.autoload_paths += %W(#{config.root}/lib #{config.root}/lib/plugins)
But that isn't working. What am I doing wrong?
UPDATE:
Trashing the plugins part of the path and putting the plugins directory directly in doesn't work either. Each plugin has an init.rb file that basically requires the main library, also.
I'm not sure if these are the instructions you were following, but you probably want the plugin folder itself at the root of lib:
/lib
/lib/plugin1
/lib/plugin1/plugin1.rb
You also may need an initializer: config/initializers/plugin1.rb.
If that doesn't help, please post more information about what you're expecting to see and why it's not working.
I came to notice that there is one folder called assets in the root folder.To know more about it,I went through this link.Now I want to know adding some css in these files is good or shall I add css to to the main.css file inside css folder.
The asset folder is automatically generated by Yii based upon your environment so best avoid putting your CSS, images etc inside here. It also best to not commit these folders and files into SVN as they are automatically generated and folder names will differ from your qa/staging/live site to your local site.
There are some good reasons to use Yii's assets.
it prevents naming conflicts in css and js files
it allows you to keep CSS and JS files under your document-root but outside of your web-root (for easier version control)
it allows to easily switch between sets of CSS & JS files, rather than having to deal with each file individually (suppose the system admin needs to revert back to a previous version).
it allows you to publish assets (images, JS & CS) to several websites hosted on the same server.
Please check here or there for more details.
Well, when i started my first Yii project, i also put my CSS and JS files in assets. It works but then i found that its not just the right way. Its better to make a separate directory for your CSS file(s). Also there are some auto generated files in assets, so to avoid mix-up with those and your i prefer to make it separate. Hope you got the point.
I am trying to put some external images (used by a jQuery plugin) to vendor/assets/images in my Rails 3.1 app. Problem is that when I try something like:
<%= image_tag "ui-bg_flat_75_ffffff_40x100.png" %>
I get an error:
No route matches [GET] "/assets/ui-bg_flat_75_ffffff_40x100.png"
I checked my Rails.application.config.assets.paths and it list these dirs:
..../app/assets/images
..../app/assets/javascripts
..../app/assets/stylesheets
..../vendor/assets/images
..../vendor/assets/stylesheets
..../.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.2-p180#mygems/gems/jquery-rails-1.0.9/vendor/assets/javascripts
As you can see /vendor/assets/images is listed there. If I put my image to app/assets/images everything works.
I thought that new asset pipeline was supposed to go through all assets dirs and serve requested file wherever it finds it.
Does anyone knows what's the problem here?
I had to restart my rails server after creating the vendor/assets/images directory. Before this, I was seeing the same error as you ("No route matches [GET]").
My guess is that the rails server does not check these directories if they did not exist when it was first started. When you open a rails console to diagnose the issue, you get a new instance of rails which knows about the directory, which only adds to the confusion.
If you are using a jQuery UI Theme Roller theme then the problem might be that in the jquery-ui css file the images are referenced within a sub folder 'images'.
I.e. you either have to put your images in a folder './app/assets/images/images' or you have to edit the jquery-ui css file and remove the 'images/' folder prefix.
The asset pipeline is described in this rails guide by Ryan Bigg (draft status at the moment).
http://ryanbigg.com/guides/asset_pipeline.html and http://ryanbigg.com/2011/06/sprocket-asset-tags-internals/ for the references.
According to this, your example should work.
Extract:
Assets can be placed inside an application in one of three locations: app/assets, lib/assets or vendor/assets.
app/assets is for assets that are owned by the application, such as custom images, javascript files or stylesheets.
lib/assets is for your own libraries’ code that doesn’t really fit into the scope of the application or those libraries which are shared across applications.
vendor/assets is for assets that are owned by outside entities, such as code for JavaScript plugins.
Any subdirectory that exists within these three locations will be added to the search path for Sprockets (visible by calling Rails.application.config.assets.paths in a console). When an asset is requested, these paths will be looked through to see if they contain an asset matching the name specified. Once an asset has been found, it’s processed by Sprockets and then served up.
I have tested with an example in my app and the same syntax as yours works. Maybe you have a typo in the name of your asset.
For Martin: search path for Sprockets is visible by calling Rails.application.config.assets.paths in a console.
Maybe you should create another folder in /assets/images. You make a name 'images' and then you just copy all jquery-ui image and paste on folder 'images' that you create before. Hopefully this will help you.
Hello I have one question I have my file main.scss which is in public/stylesheets/scss. In documentation is written:
By default, .sass and .scss files are
placed in public/stylesheets/sass
(this can be customized with the
:template_location option). Then,
whenever necessary, they’re compiled
into corresponding CSS files in
public/stylesheets. For instance,
public/stylesheets/sass/main.scss
would be compiled to
public/stylesheets/main.css.
I have in my gemfile gem 'haml'
And from my view I do sth like this
= stylesheet_link_tag 'main'
And the file is not found when I check the source(there is a file with with information about routing error). I guess that compiling it by hand it is not way to go so how I can make compile scss file to public/stylesheets automatic? What mean in documentation that they are compiled when necessary?
Thanks in advance
Put your .sass or .scss files in public/stylesheets/sass, not public/stylesheets/scss. Then the stylesheets should automatically generate whenever you change the corresponding sass/scss file. The generated stylesheets end up in public/stylesheets/.
Renaming the folder should make it all work.
EDIT: it looks like Rails 3.1 is going to be not only including SASS by default, but it will also be moving most of the stuff found in the public folder to the app folder... so this answer will only apply to versions of rails before 3.1.