Padrino Assets

Overview

Padrino assets is a plugin for the Padrino web framework which uses Sprockets to manage and compile web assets.

Setup & Installation

Include it in your project's Gemfile

gem 'padrino-assets'

Modify your app/app.rb file to register the plugin:

class ExampleApplication < Padrino::Application
  register Padrino::Assets
end

Note: Because padrino-assets overrides some existing helpers the above must be placed below Padrino::Helpers

Modify your config.ru file to mount the environment:

map '/assets' do
  run Padrino::Assets.environment
end

By default, Sprockets is configured to load assets from your project's app/assets and lib/assets directories. Any files stored in these directories are readily available to the included helpers, and will be served by the Sprockets middleware.

Because of this the following directories are no longer used, and will be served statically:

public/images
public/stylesheets
public/javascripts

You should now be storing your assets in the following directories:

app/assets/images
app/assets/stylesheets
app/assets/javascripts

Should your project need to add additional paths you can easily do so by adding the following line:

Sprockets.append_path('path/to/my/assets')

Configuration

Although the defaults are enough to get you started. There are several configuration options available to further customize this plugin to your project's personal needs. The following options can be changed at anytime with set, enable, or disable.

:assets_host

Is the URL to the external server currently hosting your assets. Generally, you only set this option if you want to host your assets on a separate server or service such as Amazon S3.

When a Proc is used, the current asset, and request will be passed to it as arguments:

set :assets_hosts, ->(asset, request) do
  if request.ssl?
    'https://secure.assets.com'
  else
    'http://assets.com'
  end
end

Of course if you don't need anything flashy a string will suffice:

set :assets_host, 'http://assets.com'

:compress_assets

If enabled, will automatically compress, and gzip your assets to save server bandwidth. Due to the Java dependencies, and the lack of a suitable pure Ruby alternative, a default compressor is not currently provided.

:precompile_assets

Is an array of assets that will be compiled when the task assets:precompile is run. Once compiled, an MD5 checksum is calculated and inserted into the file name. This checksum serves as a way to version your assets so that they can be properly cached by web browsers.

To filter which assets are compiled you have a few options. As an example, using a regular expression:

set :precompile_assets, [/^\w\.(?!(?:css|js)$)/i]

The above would compile all assets that do not have the extension .css or .js.

Or if you prefer, a collection of files would work too:

set :precompile_assets, [
  'jquery.js',
  'jquery.unobtrusive.js',
  'application.css',
  'pony.jpg'
]

If you are deploying to a production environment it is recommended that you precompile your assets so that they can be statically served by your web server. In a development environment, your assets will be compiled with every request.

Dependencies

TODO

Additional documentation

Cirex/padrino-assets