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Catalyst-Plugin-Assets-0.032
River stage one • 1 direct dependent • 1 total dependent
/ Catalyst::Plugin::Assets

NAME

Catalyst::Plugin::Assets - Manage and minify .css and .js assets in a Catalyst application

VERSION

Version 0.032

SYNOPSIS

    # In your Catalyst application... 

    use Catalyst qw/-Debug Assets Static::Simple/;
    # Static::Simple is not *required*, but C::P::Assets does not serve files by itself!
    
    # This is all you need. Now your $catalyst object will now have an ->assets method.

    # Sometime during the request ...

    sub some_action : Local {
        my ($self, $catalyst) = @_;
        
        ...

        $catalyst->assets->include("stylesheet.css");

        ...
    }

    # Then, in your .tt (or whatever you're using for view processing):

    <html>
    <head><title>[% title %]</title>

    [% catalyst.assets.export %]

    </head>
    <body>

    ...

DESCRIPTION

Catalyst::Plugin::Assets integrates File::Assets into your Catalyst application. Essentially, it provides a unified way to include .css and .js assets from different parts of your program. When you're done processing a request, you can use $catalyst->assets->export() to generate HTML or $catalyst->assets->exports() to get a list of assets.

C::P::Assets will also handle .css files of different media types properly.

In addition, C::P::Assets includes support for minification via YUI compressor, JavaScript::Minifier, and CSS::Minifier (and a rudimentary concatenation filter)

Note that Catalyst::Plugin::Assets does not serve files directly, it will work with Static::Simple or whatever static-file-serving mechanism you're using.

A brief description of File::Assets

File::Assets is a tool for managing JavaScript and CSS assets in a (web) application. It allows you to "publish" assests in one place after having specified them in different parts of the application (e.g. throughout request and template processing phases).

File::Assets has the added bonus of assisting with minification and filtering of assets. Support is built-in for YUI Compressor (http://developer.yahoo.com/yui/compressor/), JavaScript::Minifier, and CSS::Minifier. Filtering is fairly straightforward to implement, so it's a good place to start if need a JavaScript or CSS preprocessor (e.g. something like SASS http://haml.hamptoncatlin.com/docs/rdoc/classes/Sass.html/)

USAGE

For usage hints and tips, see File::Assets

CONFIGURATION

You can configure C::P::Assets by manipulating the $catalyst->config->{'Plugin::Assets'} hash.

Note, in previous versions, the configuration location was $catalyst->config->{assets}

The following settings are available:

    path        # A path to automatically look for assets under (e.g. "/static" or "/assets")

                # This path will be automatically prepended to includes, so that instead of
                # doing ->include("/static/stylesheet.css") you can just do ->include("stylesheet.css")
                

    output_path # The path to output the results of minification under (if any).
                # For example, if output is "built/" (the trailing slash is important), then minified assets will be
                # written to "root/<assets-path>/built/..."


    minify      # '1' to use JavaScript::Minifier and CSS::Minifier for minification
                # 'yuicompressor:<path-to-yuicompressor-jar>' to use YUI Compressor


    stash_var   # The name of the key in the stash that provides the assets object (accessible via $catalyst->stash->{<stash_var}.
                # By default, the <stash_var> is "assets".
                # To disable the setting of the stash variable, set <stash_var> to undef

Example configuration

Here is an example configuration:

    # Under the configuration below, the assets object will automatically
    # look for assets (.css and .js files) under <home>/root/static/*
    # If it needs to generate a minified asset, it will deposit the generated asset under <home>/root/static/built/*

    # To turn off minification, set minify to 0

    # Finally, the assets object is also available via $catalyst->stash->{assets} (This is actually the default setting)

    __PACKAGE__->config(
        
        name => 'Example',

        'Plugin::Assets' => {

            path => "/static",
            output_path => "built/",
            minify => 1,

            stash_var => "assets", # This is the default setting
        },

    );

    # Later, to include "http://localhost/static/example.css", do:

    $catalyst->assets->include("example.css");

    # To include "http://localhost/static/example.js", do:

    $catalyst->assets->include("example.js");

METHODS

assets

Return the File::Assets object that exists throughout the lifetime of the request

AUTHOR

Robert Krimen, <rkrimen at cpan.org>

BUGS

Please report any bugs or feature requests to bug-catalyst-plugin-assets at rt.cpan.org, or through the web interface at http://rt.cpan.org/NoAuth/ReportBug.html?Queue=Catalyst-Plugin-Assets. I will be notified, and then you'll automatically be notified of progress on your bug as I make changes.

SUPPORT

You can find documentation for this module with the perldoc command.

    perldoc Catalyst::Plugin::Assets

You can also look for information at:

SEE ALSO

File::Assets, JavaScript::Minifier, CSS::Minifier, http://developer.yahoo.com/yui/compressor/, Catalyst

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

COPYRIGHT & LICENSE

Copyright 2008 Robert Krimen

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.