Minipack

Minipack, a gem for minimalists, which can integrates Rails with webpack. It is an alternative to Webpacker.

Minipack provides view helpers through a manifest, which resolve paths of assets build by a webpack configured by you as you like.

Note: Before Minipack v0.3.0, it was called WebpackManifest. Please refer to the migration guide from WebpackManifest.

Features

Rails view helpers to resolve paths to assets which are built by webpack according to a manifest file.
Multiple manifest files support
Pre-build assets before running tests

Pre configuration

Unlike Webpacker, Minipack itself does not offer generating webpack configuration, DSL for setup, or scaffolding. So first you need to set up webpack in your favorite way.

Also, Minipack expects that webpack emits a manifest file. So please install webpack-manifest-plugin and set it up accordingly.

Installation

Add this line to your application's Gemfile:

gem 'minipack'

And then execute:

$ bundle

Or install it yourself as:

$ gem install minipack

Configuration

After installed, configure your Rails app below as a new file config/initializers/minipack.rb.

Minipack.configuration do |c|
  # By default c.cache is set to `false`, which means an application always parses a
  # manifest.json. In development, you should set cache false usually.
  # Instead, setting it `true` which caches the manifest in memory is recommended basically.
  c.cache = !Rails.env.development?

  # Register a path to a manifest file here. Right now you have to specify an absolute path.
  c.manifest = Rails.root.join('public', 'assets', 'manifest.json')

  # If you are not extracting CSS in your webpack config you should set this flag to false
  # c.extract_css = !Rails.env.development?

  # The base directory for the frontend system. By default, it will be
  # `Rails.root`.
  # c.base_path = Rails.root
  #
  # Suppose you want to change the root directory for the frontend system such as `frontend`.
  # Note that a base_path can be a relative path from `Rails.root`.
  # c.base_path = 'frontend'

  # You can invokes a command to build assets in node from Minipack.
  #
  # When running tests, the lazy compilation is cached until a cache key, based
  # on file checksum under your tracked paths, is changed. You can configure
  # which paths are tracked by adding new paths to `build_cache_key`. Each path
  # can be a relative path from the `base_dir`.
  #
  # The value will be as follows by default:
  # c.build_cache_key = [
  #   'package.json', 'package-lock.json', 'yarn.lock', 'webpack.config.js',
  #   'webpackfile.js', 'config/webpack.config.js', 'config/webpackfile.js',
  #   'app/javascripts/**/*',
  # ]
  #
  # You can override it.
  # c.build_cache_key = ['package.json', 'package-lock.json', 'config/webpack.config.js', 'src/**/*'] 
  #
  # Or you can add files in addition to the defaults:
  # c.build_cache_key << 'src/**/*'

  # A command to to build assets. The command you specify is executed under the `base_dir`.
  # c.build_command = 'node_modules/.bin/webpack'
  #
  # You may want to customize it with options:
  # c.build_command = 'node_modules/.bin/webpack --config config/webpack.config.js --mode production'
  #
  # You are also able to specify npm run script.
  # c.build_command = 'npm run build'

  # A full package installation command, with it's arguments and options. The command is executed under the `base_path`.
  # c.pkg_install_command = 'npm install'
  #
  # If you prefer `yarn`:
  # c.pkg_install_command = 'yarn install'
end

Usage

Rails view helpers

`asset_bundle_path`

This is a wrapper of asset_path. You can set any options of asset_path.

A given entry point name is resolved according to definition of manifest.

asset_bundle_path 'calendar.css'
  # => "/assets/web/pack/calendar-1016838bab065ae1e122.css"

asset_bundle_path 'icon/favicon.ico'
  # => "/assets/web/pack/icon/favicon-1016838bab065ae1e122.ico"

`javascript_bundle_tag`

This is a wrapper of javascript_include_tag. You can set any options of javascript_include_tag.

Given entry point name is resolved according to definition of manifest.

javascript_bundle_tag 'calendar', 'data-turbolinks-track': 'reload'
  # => <script src="/assets/web/pack/calendar-1016838bab065ae1e314.js"
  #     data-turbolinks-track="reload"></script>

javascript_bundle_tag 'orders/app'
  # => <script src="/assets/web/pack/orders/app-1016838bab065ae1e314.js"></script>

`stylesheet_bundle_tag`

This is a wrapper of stylesheet_link_tag. You can set any options of stylesheet_link_tag.

A given entry point name is resolved according to definition of manifest.

stylesheet_bundle_tag 'calendar', 'data-turbolinks-track': 'reload'
  # => <link rel="stylesheet" media="screen"
  #     href="/assets/web/pack/calendar-1016838bab065ae1e122.css"
  #     data-turbolinks-track="reload" />

stylesheet_bundle_tag 'orders/style'
  # => <link rel="stylesheet" media="screen"
  #    href="/assets/web/pack/orders/style-1016838bab065ae1e122.css" />

`image_bundle_tag`

This is a wrapper of image_tag. You can set any options of image_tag.

A given entry point name is resolved according to definition of manifest.

image_bundle_tag 'icon.png'
  # => <img src="/assets/pack/icon-1016838bab065ae1e314.png" />

image_bundle_tag "icon.png", size: "16x10", alt: "Edit Entry"
  # => <img src="/assets/pack/icon-1016838bab065ae1e314.png" width="16"
        height="10" alt="Edit Entry" />

`javascript_bundles_with_chunks_tag` and `stylesheet_bundles_with_chunks_tag`

Experimental These are the helpers, which are similar to Webpacker, to support splitChunks feature introduced since Webpack 4.

For the full configuration options of splitChunks, see the Webpack's documentation.

Then use the javascript_bundles_with_chunks_tag and stylesheet_bundles_with_chunks_tag helpers to include all the transpiled packs with the chunks in your view, which creates html tags for all the chunks.

<%= javascript_bundles_with_chunks_tag 'calendar', 'map', 'data-turbolinks-track': 'reload' %>

<!-- Creates the following: -->
<script src="/packs/vendor-16838bab065ae1e314.js" data-turbolinks-track="reload"></script>
<script src="/packs/calendar~runtime-16838bab065ae1e314.js" data-turbolinks-track="reload"></script>
<script src="/packs/calendar-1016838bab065ae1e314.js" data-turbolinks-track="reload"></script>
<script src="/packs/map~runtime-16838bab065ae1e314.js" data-turbolinks-track="reload"></script>
<script src="/packs/map-16838bab065ae1e314.js" data-turbolinks-track="reload"></script>

Important: Pass all your pack names to the helper otherwise you will get duplicated chunks on the page.

<%# DO %>
<%= javascript_bundles_with_chunks_tag 'calendar', 'map' %>

<%# DON'T %>
<%= javascript_bundles_with_chunks_tag 'calendar' %>
<%= javascript_bundles_with_chunks_tag 'map' %>

Important: Also, these helpers do not work with webpack-manifest-plugin npm because it has no support to generate a manifest with a set of of chunk entries https://github.com/danethurber/webpack-manifest-plugin/issues/133. Instead, webpack-assets-manifest npm supports. Please change the plugin for manifest file generation if you wish to enable splitChunks feature.

const WebpackAssetsManifest = require('webpack-assets-manifest');

module.exports = {
  // ...
  plugins: [
    new WebpackAssetsManifest({
      entrypoints: true, // Please set this as true
    })
  ],
  // ...
}

Advanced Configuration

Hot Module Replacement in development

Optionally you can integrate the gem with webpack-dev-server to enable live reloading by setting an manifest url served by webpack-dev-server, instead of a local file path. This should be used for development only.

Note that Minipack itself does not launches webpack-dev-server, so it must be started along with Rails server by yourself.

Minipack.configuration do |c|
  c.cache = !Rails.env.development?

  c.manifest = if Rails.env.development?
                 'http://localhost:8080/packs/manifest.json'
               else
                 Rails.root.join('public', 'assets', 'manifest.json')
               end
end

Multiple manifest files support

This is optional. You can register multiple manifest files for the view helpers. This feature must be useful if your Rails project serves for several sites, then asset bundling process is isolated every site.

For example, your project serve for two sites, shop and admin from each individual manifest file. You can register each as

# In config/initializers/minipack.rb

Minipack.configuration do |c|
  c.cache = !Rails.env.development?

  # In order for Raild to handle multiple manifests, you must call `c.add` instead
  # of `c.manifest=`. Note that the first registered one(e.g. `shop` in this
  # example) is recognized as a default manifest.
  c.add :shop do |co|
    co.manifest = Rails.root.join('public', 'assets', 'manifest-shop.json')
    co.base_path = Rails.root.join('frontend/shop')
  end

  c.add :admin do |co|
    co.manifest = Rails.root.join('public', 'assets', 'manifest-admin.json')
    co.base_path = Rails.root.join('frontend/admin')
    # You can customize all configurable parameters per site.
    co.build_cache_key << 'javascripts/**/*'
    co.build_command = 'yarn install'
  end
end

Then you can resolve a path with view helpers by passing manifest: option.

# This resolves a path by shop's manifest json.
javascript_bundle_tag('item_group_editor', manifest: :shop)

# This resolves a path by admin's manifest json.
asset_bundle_tag('favicon.ico', manifest: :admin)

# This resolves a path by shop's manifest json implicitly because the first one is marked as a default.
javascript_bundle_tag('item_group_editor')

Building assets before running tests

To pre-build assets before runngin tests, add the following line (typically to your spec_helper.rb file):

require 'minipack/rspec'

TODO

Provides configuration generator for Rails initializers

Acknowledgement

Special thanks to @f_subal and his awesome blog post(japanese).

Alternatives

ed-mare/minipack_plugin

Development

After checking out the repo, run bin/setup to install dependencies. Then, run rake spec to run the tests. You can also run bin/console for an interactive prompt that will allow you to experiment.

To install this gem onto your local machine, run bundle exec rake install. To release a new version, update the version number in version.rb, and then run bundle exec rake release, which will create a git tag for the version, push git commits and tags, and push the .gem file to rubygems.org.

Contributing

Bug reports and pull requests are welcome on GitHub at https://github.com/nikushi/minipack.

License

The gem is available as open source under the terms of the MIT License.

Minipack

Features

Pre configuration

Installation

Configuration

Usage

Rails view helpers

asset_bundle_path

javascript_bundle_tag

stylesheet_bundle_tag

image_bundle_tag

javascript_bundles_with_chunks_tag and stylesheet_bundles_with_chunks_tag

Advanced Configuration

Hot Module Replacement in development

Multiple manifest files support

Building assets before running tests

TODO

Acknowledgement

Alternatives

Development

Contributing

License

`asset_bundle_path`

`javascript_bundle_tag`

`stylesheet_bundle_tag`

`image_bundle_tag`

`javascript_bundles_with_chunks_tag` and `stylesheet_bundles_with_chunks_tag`