CI-AssetLoad

A CodeIgniter library for loading CSS & JS assets from a manifest file supporting different environments with an optional cache busting mechanism. You can also specify assets for Internet Explorer instead of using conditional CSS & JS.

Usage:

Download and extract to your CodeIgniter libraries directory
Either autoload the library or explicitly load it in your controllers
Define your asset manifest file for your environments and optionally provide default assets for all environments
Replace the css link & script tags with <?php $this->assetload->queue(); ?> in your template head section
Enjoy the sanity that follows! :)

Methods

AssetLoad::queue($cache_bust = false, $manifest_file_name = 'assets.ini', $manifest_path = 'assets/')

Defining a Manifest File:

Your manifest file should be called assets.ini and placed inside your parent assets directory: /assets/assets.ini

Structure

; Asset loader manifest file

[defaults]
css[] = "css/reset.css"
js[]  = "js/html5shiv.min.js"

[ie6]
css[] = "css/chromeframe.css"
js[] = "js/chromeframe.js"

[ie7]
css[] = "css/paddingfix.css"
js[] = "js/chromeframe.js"

[development]
css[] = "css/application.css"
js[]  = "js/vendor/modernizr-2.6.2.min.js"
js[]  = "js/vendor/raphael-min.js"
js[]  = "js/plugins.js"
js[]  = "js/debugger.js"

[production]
css[] = "css/compiled.css"
js[]  = "//ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/2.0.0/jquery.min.js"
js[]  = "js/compiled.js"

[testing]
css[] = "css/application.css"
js[]  = "//ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/2.0.0/jquery.min.js"
js[]  = "js/vendor/modernizr-2.6.2.min.js"
js[]  = "js/vendor/raphael-min.js"
js[]  = "js/plugins.js"
js[]  = "js/application.js"

To insert script tags having different attributes you can use following syntax:

js[]  = ["src => http://code.jquery.com/jquery-2.1.1.min.js", "async => true"]
js[]  = ["src => js/application.js", "id => main-script"]

Changing Defaults

The loader assumes all your assets are contained in child directories within the /assets directory in your project root, but you can change this by specifying the parent asset directory as follows:

<head>
    <meta charset="utf-8">
    <meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=edge,chrome=1">
    <title>Your title</title>
    <meta name="description" content="">
    <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width">
	<?php $this->assetload->queue(false); ?>
</head>

If you wish to enable cache-busting by automatically adding a timestamp to include paths in production or testing environments, simply change the first argument to the queue() method to true as follows:

<head>
    <meta charset="utf-8">
    <meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=edge,chrome=1">
    <title>Your title</title>
    <meta name="description" content="">
    <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width">
	<?php $this->assetload->queue(true); ?>
</head>

Multiple Manifest Files per Project

It is possible to load different manifest files within a single project. A good example would be if you are running a website and a dashboard/app from one framework installation. Here's how to do to:

In the website header:

<head>
    <meta charset="utf-8">
    <meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=edge,chrome=1">
    <title>Website</title>
    <meta name="description" content="">
    <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width">
	<?php $this->assetload->queue(false, 'website.ini'); ?>
</head>

In the application/dashboard header:

<head>
    <meta charset="utf-8">
    <meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=edge,chrome=1">
    <title>Dashboard</title>
    <meta name="description" content="">
    <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width">
	<?php $this->assetload->queue(false, 'dashboard.ini'); ?>
</head>

Contributors

TODO

Wildcard lazy-loader
Resolve all issues

Wixel/CodeIgniter-AssetLoader