rails 3.1 style asset url resolutions

[bhavinkamani]

I am experimenting with rails 3.1.

Rails is resolving assets url as assets/.js. It maps this to app/assets/jaavscripts/.js and vendor/assets/javascripts/*.js. app files gets priortiy then the vendor files.

I love jammit and would like to know if there is a way to enter assets/*.js url instead of explicit vendor or app url relative to root path in assets.yml file.

Please pardon my ignorance if something like this already exist and I am not aware of the same.

[bhavinkamani]

After little more investigation, I am not able to make jammit work with rails 3.1 vendor assets. on giving vendor/assets/javascripts/*.js, it gives same path in my html.

   <script src="/vendor/assets/javascripts/elastic.js" type="text/javascript"></script>

I have a hunch that I am missing something silly.

[serek]

Ok, but there needs to be a way of running Jammit with rails 3.1 ?

[bhavinkamani]

I agree with Serek. After trying out sprockets, I feel jammit is far more intuitive. Specifically, I like the way jammit manages all assets under one roof (assets.yml) and asset extensions such as template etc. I certainly miss jammit big time in rails 3.1. Also, one should have option to choose asset pipeline engine. Isn't that a fundamental rails philosophy?

[jashkenas]

Jammit should work fine with Rails 3.1. Just use it as you would normally.

[bhavinkamani]

I tried to use it. I am stuck at urls. How should I refer assets within assets.yml. Here's my assets.yml file. I have a simple test.js under assets/javascripts folder. I dont see the ref of test.js in the html output.

config/assets.yml

compress_assets: off

javascripts:
  workspace:
    - assets/javascripts/test.js

app/views/layoutsapplication.html.erb

  <%= include_javascripts :workspace %>

[jashkenas]

You wouldn't put JavaScripts in "assets" -- you'd leave them in "public", as before.

[vandrijevik]

Whoops, my bad! Deleted my misleading comment.

[bhavinkamani]

Thanks a lot Jeremy... That works fine.

Is there a plan to allow reference to assets placed under assets/ folder. Also would one has to fall back on barista for coffeescript and compass for sass or can I use assets pipelining provided by tilt/sprockets?

[jashkenas]

No, there are no plans to allow assets to be placed under the assets folder -- they need to be somewhere publicly accessible by the web server. "public" is a great place for that. I don't know about what level of sprockets integration you'll be able to get -- you'll have to ask the sprockets folks about that.

[agibralter]

@bhavinkamani -- I've always had my assets in app/javascripts and app/stylesheets. It's actually quite easy to use jammit with this set up. All you need to do is symlink public/app/javascripts => app/javascripts. I have a hook in my config/environments/development.rb to do it automatically:

# Symlink javascripts and stylesheets on the fly.
config.after_initialize do
  if !File.exists?(File.join(Rails.root, 'public', 'app'))
    Rails.logger.info "Linking from public/ to app/javascripts and app/stylesheets for Jammit's helpers."
    `mkdir -p #{Rails.root}/public/app`
    `ln -s #{Rails.root}/app/javascripts #{Rails.root}/public/app/javascripts`
    `ln -s #{Rails.root}/app/stylesheets #{Rails.root}/public/app/stylesheets`
  end
end

This way, in development when the assets are not packaged, the URLs work.

[bhavinkamani]

Thanks @agibralter for your reply. Thats a neat approach.

I liked the way tilt takes care of abstracting template engines. Similarly I like the way jammit takes care of asset packaging through one config file. Right now, it appears to me that if I want to use tilt I have to use sprockets or I have to use jammit with barista, compass and other separate gems for each templates. I would have liked to disable sprockets and enable jammit integrated with tilt. Not sure if there is already a way and I am missing something?

[fluxsaas]

you could add your folder to the assets pipeline path:

config.assets.paths << "#{Rails.root}/public/packages"

i have my .js packed there.