Assets-Igniter

Assets-Igniter is the best approach for you to handle external CSS and JS files. Assets-Igniter is lightweight, simple, and clean, and you can customize it at your will! It comes with a helper file to assist you and simplify the process of loading external files! For more information about how to use and customize the library, keep on reading this instructions.

Features

Fully customizable!
Minify CSS and JS files (if you want to).
Merge multiple files into one group to load less files in browser.
Set versions to each file or to each file type.
Keep track of errors with a debug function.
Translate the error messages to the language you want.
Comes with an helper to make much easier to use the library!

Requirements

PHP version 5.6 or newer is recommended.
CodeIgniter version 2.2.1+

Instalation

To use the Assets-Igniter Library you must fist copy the file located in application/config/assets.php to your own application/config/ folder. Then, edit this file according to your configurations. Four variables you MUST set to work fine with the Assets-Igniter:

css_path: The path to your CSS files.
js_path: The path to your JS files.
min_css_path: The path to your minified CSS files.
min_js_path: The path to your minified JS files.

It is important that all this folders have a 0664 permission because the Assets-Igniter will sometimes try to write some files in them.

After the configuration of the Assets-Igniter, copy the files application/libraries/Assets.php, application/language/english/assets_lang.php and if you want to use our helper, application/helpers/assets_helper.php to your own application/libraries/, application/language/english/ and application/helpers/ folders.

That's all! Have fun!

Library Usage

Below are some examples of what the Assets-Igniter does!

Loading Library

Your can load the Assets-Igniter as you load any other library:

$this->load->library('assets');

Setting custom configurations

If you want to load different configurations you can pass a variable while loading the library with the configurations you want to customize, like this:

$config = array(
	'css_path' => 'custom/path/to/css/',
	'js_path' => 'custom/path/to/js/'
);
$this->load->library('assets', $config);

But if you need to run the library and after that to change the configurations, you can do that using the initialize function:

$this->load->library('assets', $config);

$new_config = array(
	'css_path' => 'another/path/to/css/',
	'js_path' => 'another/path/to/js/'
);
$this->assets->initialize($new_config);

Clearing loaded data

To clear whatever file you have already loaded, and reset the configurations to those in the application/config/assets.php file, you can use the clear function:

$this->assets->clear();

For debugging reasons error messages are kept on clearing. If you want to clear the errors that was saved, set the first parameter of the clear function to TRUE and the errors will also be cleared.

Remember: If you previously loaded any custom configurations they will also be cleared and the library will be restored to the configurations saved on application/config/assets.php.

Loading files

Loading files is easy! You can use the following code as many times you need:

$this->assets->load('filename.css', 'groupname', 123);
$this->assets->load('path/to/filename.css', 'groupname', 456);

Note that three parameters are given to the function. The only required parameter is the first one! The first parameter is the name of the file. The file given must be inside the path described in application/config/assets.php for its type of file.

The second parameter is a name for the group, if you set auto_merge, or any merge type to TRUE (in the configurations), all files in the group will be combined into one file with the group name. In the example above, both files would be merged into one file named groupname.css or groupname.min.css, if you also set minify type to TRUE.

The third parameter is optional! If you set a number on it this number will be used as the version of the file loaded. If not set, the type version in application/config/assets.php will be used.

Remember: You can ONLY load one file on each call to load function. If you want to call multiple files at once, consider to use the load_assets function in our helper.

Generating HTML tags

You can create as many groups you want loading the files with the load function. To generate the output HTML tags for the files, you can assign a variable to send to your view like this:

$links = $this->assets->generate('groupname');

Now, all you have to do is to send the variable $links to your view and echo it! That's all!

Remember: The first and only parameter of this function MUST be an loaded group. It can only be empty if you load a file with no group!

Error Messages

By default Assets-Igniter Library keeps an record of errors that may occur during the process. You can assign this errors to a variable to show in somewhere or to save a log (whatever).

$errors = $this->assets->print_debugger();

Helper Usage

You can use our helper instead of the library itself!

Configuring the Library

The config_assets() function accepts an array of data to configure the Assets-Igniter Library. This is useful if you want to change the configurations set in application/config/assets.php.

<?php
   config_assets(array(
      'css_path' => 'path/to/css/',
      'js_path' => 'path/to/js/'
   ));
?>

Loading Files

You can load files direct on your views using the function load_assets(). You can pass a string in the first parameter with the the file path or your can pass an array with multiple paths. The array passed can have a prototype of filename => version.

The second parameter is the name of the group to use. Additionally, you can pass an array of configurations in the third parameter.

<?php
   echo load_assets('filename.js', 'scripts');

   echo load_assets(array(
      'main.css',
      'filename.css' => 123
   ), 'styles');

   echo load_assets('last.js', 'lasts', array(
      'js_path' => 'new/path/to/js/'
   ));
?>

Clearing Assets

To clear the files and configurations in the Assets-Igniter Library use the function clear_assets(). The clear_assets() function accepts only one parameter telling it to clear the error messages. If you want to clear the errors for debug porpuses, set the parameter to TRUE.

<?php
   clear_assets(TRUE);
?>

Debug Errors

To show the debug error messages echo the function debug_assets(). It doesn't need any parameter.

<?php echo debug_assets(); ?>

Contributions

This package was created by Gustavo Martins, but your help is welcome! Things you are welcome to do:

Report any bug you may encounter
Suggest a feature for the project

For more information about contributing to the project please, read the Contributing Requirements.

Change Log

Currently, the Assets-Igniter Library is in the version 1.0.1. See the full Changelog for more details.

gustmartins/Assets-Igniter