Whenever I add a new feature (eg. something I downloaded) I tend to want to put all the files (css, html, js, images) in one place.
Symfony 2.0 will have this new feature they called bundle system. Everything will be in its own folder. This will be great for adding new features so you don't have to mix all css, js, image files with each other. It should be per feature instead.
And also it would be great for deleting features. Then you know that all files are in one place and don't have to look for them throughout your application.
Eg.
Instead of this...
images/
fader.img
cart1.img
cart2.img
javascripts/
fader.js
cart.js
stylesheets/
fader.css
cart_main.css
cart_sub.css
...you should have it like this...
venture/
fader/
fader.img
fader.css
fader.js
cart/
cart1.img
cart2.img
cart.js
cart_main.css
cart_sub.css
Is there a way of doing so in Rails 3?
Sure, you could just treat them like a plugin - making a set of files into a plugin is very simple, after all - you basically just put them in a folder, in a file structure parallel to the root of your rails app, then put that folder in your vendor/plugins folder.
Here's the guide on it: http://guides.rubyonrails.org/plugins.html
Then, if you want to delete a feature, just destroy it's plugin folder, and you're clean.
Related
I have a script which is using rspec tests for automation of the rails app. I don't want to put the file "automation.rb" in the spec folder or in the lib folder (don't want a gem for this code).
My question is: Can we have custom folders in addition to the standard ones in the rails directory structure.
Eg. a folder like automation in the root directory of rails app.
Yes, you can have any number of custom folders within your app structure.
The thing to be aware of here, is that if you're going to use code from these folders (why would you have them otherwise?), you'll have to load it.
To not mess things up much, you can add these folders under /app directory - anything defined there is automatically loaded in all environments.
As to scripts - indeed, you can just store them under the scripts folder in root directory - it's a common practice (at least I've seen it used in projects I have worked on).
I have a project that includes lots of js, css and png. I couldn't divide them into javascripts and stylesheets folders. For example I have plugin1 folder it includes js and css files and I want to keep them together in same folder. Could you help me?
If you want to use the rails assets pipeline Im nearly certain that you'll have to put the files into the correct location as described in the ruby guides. Rails will then pull all this together to create, for example, the js file. It would be, I imagine, a big job to change this set up.
I guess if your set on keeping the folders the same you'll just have to point to the JavaScript/CSS files the traditional way through the header/footer with links to the file locations.
The rails guides explain the asset pipeline pretty well, and are a good place to start digging around further.
Good luck!
I can't find a good resource for explaining how to include a more complicated 3rd party package that includes js, css, and other types of assets within the same plugin. For example, the plupload plugin has a lot of different assets spread out in multiple folders. I have put it in the vendor/assets/plupload/ folder and then require the tree in my manifest file, but then it refers to other other files with a relative pathname that works in development, but the path changes in production. I can then change the references to use asset_path, but then I am modifying the vendor code which just seems wrong.
I know there is a gem out there for the plupload library, I am just using it as a case study to try and understand the best practice for including a more complicated 3rd party library than what the Rails Guides show.
Thanks!
You can place the contents related to any plugin or library in a single folder public folder. This will make all your assets available and there should not be any issue.
I am new to rails so this is probably a simple question about using the asset pipeline.
In my app, I want to use this jquery plugin: http://www.fyneworks.com/jquery/star-rating/
So to do it, I included the following gem in my gemfile: https://github.com/RichGuk/jquery-star-rating-rails
However, I find that the image used for the star ratings is too low resolution and I'd also like to change the style. However, all 3 versions of the stars that are displayed are held in one image so I'd have to play around with the scripts as well to make sure they are configured properly if I make the image for the stars larger.
Back to my question: How do I edit this image file in my application?
I've tried downloading all the files and putting them in my vender directory and editing the file but it did not seem to work.
I know the files are included by the gem but how do make the files visible to edit?
Appreciate the help!
So the asset pipeline consists of potentially many directories (assuming you are using gems that inject their own assets into the pipeline). When an asset is being grabbed in Rails, Rails goes through these directories (in the same order, every time) to find the asset. When the name of the file is first found, that's it, Rails grabs it and uses that file.
Vendor asset directories are specified after app assets, I believe. So, if you place the image that you want to change in the app/assets/images folder, you'll essentially be overriding that vendor image in your application with your own image since Rails will search it's own app/assets first. Obviously, the files need to be named the same.
Try adding your star image in your assets path. It seem to
reference star.gif using the asset_path
I would also try
overriding the star plugin by creating your own css file.
I would like to know what are the best ways to organise CSS code in Rails project?
I'm interested in how you do it and why.
If you would like to break up your css into multiple files during development you can add cache => true to stylesheet_link_tag and rails will automatically concatenate them into a single file in production. This also works for javascript_include_tag.
http://guides.rubyonrails.org/layouts_and_rendering.html#linking-to-javascript-files-with-javascript_include_tag
Generally, you should not have the client download a massive amount of CSS snippets, but pack them into a single file on the server to avoid rendering latencies. So you have the tradeoff of having functionality divided up into multiple files put wanting to send only one file to the client.
You could use SASS to have each piece of code inside a single include file and just include all of them together. This gives you the added advantage of mixins (kind of like macros) and variables among other awesome things.
Another possibility would be to use plain CSS and use something like Jammit to pack the stuff up to send to the client.
Regarding actual setups, I tend to have one file resetting the styles to a known default, a file for the basic layout (columns, default spaces, ...), and one file each for each area of concern for your specific design (headers, buttons, ...)
James and Holger's answers are very good.
Besides organizing CSS in my projects, I also had to change colour schemes a couple of times..
Trying to do consistent changes throughout many CSS files can be pretty painful (results may vary).
I ended up extending the Rails start-up procedure a little, to include a custom module "site_settings.rb"
through which I can define variable for colors and other CSS attributes, which I can then use throughout my CSS input files.
Whenever Rails starts up, and one of the input files has changed, it auto-generates the CSS files.
http://unixgods.org/~tilo/Ruby/Using_Variables_in_CSS_Files_with_Ruby_on_Rails.html
Since Rails 3.1 is out and sprockets replaced Jammit, here an excerpt form the Rails guides concerning the asset organization:
Asset Organization
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.