Creating a personalized look for your website using Rails 3.2 Asset Pipeline, a custom theme

Question

Creating a personalized look for your website using Rails 3.2 Asset Pipeline, a custom theme

Seeking assistance as I am struggling to get my CSS files loaded correctly in production for my 3.2 RoR app. Despite trying various methods, the files either do not appear or result in a 404 error.

My application utilizes a combination of a purchased theme and Bootstrap. While everything looks fine during development, once deployed to production, things start to go awry.

In addition, I have two layouts: application.html.erb and homepage.html.erb. The application.html.erb makes reference to an additional CSS file as outlined below.

Within my app/assets/stylesheets directory, the structure is as follows:

stylesheets
+compiled
 --theme.css #includes bootstrap/bootstrap.min.css
 --custom_theme.css  #additional CSS used in application.html.erb
+vendor
 --animate.css
 --brankic.css
+bootstrap
 --bootstrap.min.css
application.css
inbox.css

The application.html.erb layout explicitly calls the following CSS:

<%= stylesheet_link_tag 'compiled/theme.css', 'vendor/brankic.css', 'vendor/animate.css',  'compiled/custom_theme.css', 'inbox.css' %>

While the homepage.html.erb layout specifically includes the following CSS:

 <%= stylesheet_link_tag 'compiled/theme.css', 'vendor/brankic.css', 'vendor/animate.css', 'inbox.css' %>

I have tried using application.css with *= require_tree ., but this loads unnecessary files. Similarly, creating a homepage.css without custom_theme still requires *= require_tree . for references in theme.css.

Moreover, I attempted pre-compiling the CSS in my config/env/prod file, but the referenced CSS files are not being pulled in.

EDIT

Based on Mike's advice, I have added the following to my config/env/prod file:

config.assets.precompile += ['bootstrap/bootstrap.min.css','compiled/theme.css', 'vendor/brankic.css', 'vendor/animate.css', 'se2b_custom.css', 'inbox.css']

Despite this addition, I continue to directly call each CSS as mentioned above, resulting in a 404 error for each file in production.

When inspecting the source code of a page using the homepage layout, the following links are displayed:

<link href="/assets/bootstrap/bootstrap.min.css?body=1" media="screen" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" />
<link href="/assets/compiled/theme.css?body=1" media="screen" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" />
<link href="/assets/vendor/brankic.css?body=1" media="screen" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" />
<link href="/assets/vendor/animate.css?body=1" media="screen" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" />
<link href="/assets/inbox.css?body=1" media="screen" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" />

However, clicking on each link leads to a 404 error.

css ruby-on-rails twitter-bootstrap asset-pipeline

Answer 1

Answer №1

If you're excluding CSS files from your application.css manifest, be sure to add them to the config.assets.precompile list in config/environments/production.rb:

config.assets.precompile += [ 'compiled/theme.css', 'vendor/brankic.css', 'vendor/animate.css',  'compiled/custom_theme.css', 'inbox.css']

This informs your Rails app about which assets need proper minification, uglification, and preprocessing for production. Learn more about how effective Rails/sprockets is at automating asset precompilation here

UPDATE Regarding your comment:

Only include assets (js/coffee/css/scss) in the config.assets.precompile array that are not part of your application manifest and you plan to use elsewhere. In config/environments/production.rb, Rails mentions:

  # Precompile additional assets (application.js, application.css, and all non-JS/CSS are already added)
  config.assets.precompile += %w( compiled/theme.css, vendor/brankic.css, path/to/other_manifest, ....)

The key point is application.js, application.css, and all non-JS/CSS are already added, indicating that if you require:

<%= stylesheet_link_tag "compiled/theme.css" %>

OR

<%= javascript_include_tag "a_different/javascript_file.js" %>

Rails needs to precompile these into individual assets files by adding them to the config.assets.precompile array. This process aims to automatically combine files, minimize, uglify, etc., to:

Reduce overall file sizes served.
Minimize unnecessary server requests for multiple asset files.
Facilitate cache busting through revisioning.

If you need further clarification, feel free to ask! Otherwise, consider this as the correct answer.

In terms of fonts, here's what I do:

Create a directory app/assets/fonts and place all font files there.
Create or reuse a CSS file in app/assets/stylesheets and reference your fonts accordingly.

For instance (app/assets/stylesheets/styles.css):

@font-face {
  font-family: "CoolIcons";
  // Font files located in app/assets/fonts/cool-icons directory
  src: font-url("cool-icons/cool-icon.eot");
  src: font-url("cool-icons/cool-icon.eot#iefix") format("embedded-opentype"),
  font-url("cool-icons/cool-icon.woff") format("woff"),
  font-url("cool-icons/cool-icon.ttf") format("truetype"),
  font-url("cool-icons/cool-icon.svg") format("svg");
  font-weight: normal;
  font-style: normal;
}

[class^="cool-icon-"]:before, [class*="cool-icon-"]:before,
[class^="cool-icon-"]:after, [class*="cool-icon-"]:after {   
  font-family: CoolIcons;
}

.cool-icon-books:before {
  content: "\e000";
}

....

Troubleshooting:

Here's how I troubleshoot missing assets, aiming to simulate production locally:

In development (local machine), update config/database.yml with:

# ...(or equivalent for postgres):
production:
  adapter: mysql2
  encoding: utf8
  reconnect: false
  database: projectname_development
  pool: 5
  username: root
  password:
  socket: /tmp/mysql.sock

Run the following command from your terminal:

# Precompile assets for production deployment simulation
RAILS_ENV=production bundle exec rake assets:precompile

Check the public/assets folder for the newly created files and verify their names. The additional characters at the end are for cache busting purposes.

Ensure each referenced file in your HTML is present in the public/assets directory. If not, your directory structure doesn't match between app/assets files and those in the config.assets.precompile list.

Also, what deployment method are you using? Capistrano? How are you referencing bootstrap/bootstrap.min.css when you mention:

stylesheets
+compiled
 --theme.css #references bootstrap/bootstrap.min.css

Answer 2

If you're excluding CSS files from your application.css manifest, be sure to add them to the config.assets.precompile list in config/environments/production.rb:

config.assets.precompile += [ 'compiled/theme.css', 'vendor/brankic.css', 'vendor/animate.css',  'compiled/custom_theme.css', 'inbox.css']

This informs your Rails app about which assets need proper minification, uglification, and preprocessing for production. Learn more about how effective Rails/sprockets is at automating asset precompilation here

UPDATE Regarding your comment:

Only include assets (js/coffee/css/scss) in the config.assets.precompile array that are not part of your application manifest and you plan to use elsewhere. In config/environments/production.rb, Rails mentions:

  # Precompile additional assets (application.js, application.css, and all non-JS/CSS are already added)
  config.assets.precompile += %w( compiled/theme.css, vendor/brankic.css, path/to/other_manifest, ....)

The key point is application.js, application.css, and all non-JS/CSS are already added, indicating that if you require:

<%= stylesheet_link_tag "compiled/theme.css" %>

OR

<%= javascript_include_tag "a_different/javascript_file.js" %>

Rails needs to precompile these into individual assets files by adding them to the config.assets.precompile array. This process aims to automatically combine files, minimize, uglify, etc., to:

Reduce overall file sizes served.
Minimize unnecessary server requests for multiple asset files.
Facilitate cache busting through revisioning.

If you need further clarification, feel free to ask! Otherwise, consider this as the correct answer.

In terms of fonts, here's what I do:

Create a directory app/assets/fonts and place all font files there.
Create or reuse a CSS file in app/assets/stylesheets and reference your fonts accordingly.

For instance (app/assets/stylesheets/styles.css):

@font-face {
  font-family: "CoolIcons";
  // Font files located in app/assets/fonts/cool-icons directory
  src: font-url("cool-icons/cool-icon.eot");
  src: font-url("cool-icons/cool-icon.eot#iefix") format("embedded-opentype"),
  font-url("cool-icons/cool-icon.woff") format("woff"),
  font-url("cool-icons/cool-icon.ttf") format("truetype"),
  font-url("cool-icons/cool-icon.svg") format("svg");
  font-weight: normal;
  font-style: normal;
}

[class^="cool-icon-"]:before, [class*="cool-icon-"]:before,
[class^="cool-icon-"]:after, [class*="cool-icon-"]:after {   
  font-family: CoolIcons;
}

.cool-icon-books:before {
  content: "\e000";
}

....

Troubleshooting:

Here's how I troubleshoot missing assets, aiming to simulate production locally:

In development (local machine), update config/database.yml with:

# ...(or equivalent for postgres):
production:
  adapter: mysql2
  encoding: utf8
  reconnect: false
  database: projectname_development
  pool: 5
  username: root
  password:
  socket: /tmp/mysql.sock

Run the following command from your terminal:

# Precompile assets for production deployment simulation
RAILS_ENV=production bundle exec rake assets:precompile

Check the public/assets folder for the newly created files and verify their names. The additional characters at the end are for cache busting purposes.

Ensure each referenced file in your HTML is present in the public/assets directory. If not, your directory structure doesn't match between app/assets files and those in the config.assets.precompile list.

Also, what deployment method are you using? Capistrano? How are you referencing bootstrap/bootstrap.min.css when you mention:

stylesheets
+compiled
 --theme.css #references bootstrap/bootstrap.min.css

Creating a personalized look for your website using Rails 3.2 Asset Pipeline, a custom theme

Answer №1

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