assets-packager

What is assets-packager?

Assets-packager is a tool for compiling, minifying, and packaging CSS and JavaScript assets into production-ready packages.

CSS bundles are created from assets which are:

• compiled from LESS templates (optional),
• minified using clean-css,
• bundled,
• preprocessed via enhance-css (inline images, asset hosts, etc),
• and packaged (and optionally precompressed).

Similarly JavaScript files are:

• bundled,
• minified using UglifyJS,
• and packaged (and optionally precompressed)

Usage

What are the requirements?

node.js 0.8.0+ on *nix (fully tested on OS X 10.6+ and CentOS) and Windows

How to install assets-packager?

npm install -g assets-packager

Tl;dr. Give me a quick demo!

OK. Here are commands to run

git clone [e-mail]:jakubpawlowicz/assets-packager.git
cd assets-packager/examples
assetspkg -c assets.yml -g

Now check examples/public/javascripts/bundled and examples/public/stylesheets/bundled for bundled code. That's it!

Is it fast?

You should have just witnessed it by yourself. :-)

It is used as a part of build process for GoalSmashers.com and it takes around 10 seconds to buld 40 CSS and 20 JavaScript bundles from hundreds of assets.

So yes, it is fast!

How to use assets-packager in my application?

First of all it assumes Rails-like directory structure for your assets, e.g:

• public
  • javascripts
    • some scripts
  • stylesheets
    • some styles

Then it needs a configuration file (here we name it assets.yml) with a definition of JS/CSS bundles, e.g:

stylesheets:
  application: 'reset,grid,base,application'
javascripts:
  application:
    - 'vendor/jquery'
    - 'application,helpers'

We recommend placing it somewhere else than in your public folder.

Now you can bundle all these packages with a single command:

assetspkg -c assets.yml

All the packages go into public/javascripts/bundled and public/stylesheets/bundled.

How to use assets-packager CLI?

Assets-packager accepts the following command line arguments:

assetspkg [options]

-h, --help                  output usage information
-v, --version               output the version number
-b, --cache-boosters        add MD5 hash to file names aka hard cache boosters
-c, --config [path]         path to file with bundles definition (defaults to ./config/assets.yml)
--css-asset-hosts [list]    assets host prefix URLs with in CSS bundles
--css-bundle-to [path]      path to stylesheets root directory (relative to --root option)
--css-embed-all             forces embedding of all resources by enhance-css
--css-safe-embed            create an additional version of packaged CSS without embedded images
--css-source [path]         path to stylesheets root directory (relative to --root option)
-g, --gzip                  gzip packaged files
-j, --concurrent [value]    number of concurrent tasks executed at once (defaults to number of logical CPUs)
--js-bundle-to [path]       path to JavaScript root directory (relative to --root option)
--js-indent [value]         indentation level in spaces when used with --js-no-minify switch
--js-line-break-at [value]  number of characters per line in optimized JavaScript (defaults to no limit)
--js-no-minify              turn off JS minification
--js-source [path]          path to JavaScript root directory (relative to --root option)
-o, --only [list]           package only given assets group or groups if separated by comma(s)
-r, --root [path]           root directory with assets directories (defaults to ./public)

What are the assets-packager's dev commands?

First clone the source, then run:

• npm run check to check JS sources with JSHint
• npm test for the test suite

The feature I want is not there!

Open an issue. Or better: fork the project, add the feature (don't forget about tests!) and send a pull request.

Contributors

• Jean-Denis Vauguet @chikamichi - --nominifyjs and --indent options allow for combination-only processing.

License

Assets-packager is released under the MIT License.