How do I use config.assets.precompile for directories rather than single files?

Question

How do I use config.assets.precompile in production to only include the files in 'lib/assets/javascripts', 'lib/assets/stylesheets', 'vendor/assets/javascripts' and 'vendor/assets/stylesheets'?

Basically something like:

config.assets.precompile += %w( pagespecific.js anotherpage.js )

But used to auto include files in specific directories that are not 'app/assets/javascripts' or 'app/assets/stylesheets'.

*edit: adding the solution I ended up using for page specific js

config.assets.precompile += ['pages/*.js']

Answer 1

You can simply write it like this:

config.assets.precompile += ['directory/*']

Answer 2

The point of compiling assets is to build one (or a small number of) files to minimize the number of HTTP requests from the browser.

If you're going to serve each file individually, then why not just disable precompile?

To use precompile as intended, build an entire directory into one file using Sprockets' require_directory:

//= require_directory ./awesome_js_app

...and list that file in your config.assets.precompile array.

By default, all CSS is built into application.css & JS into application.js. You can add more top-level files to compile with the precompile directive in config/environments/production.rb (and other envs if you wish.) For example:

config.assets.precompile += %w( public.css public.js )

Then the Sprockets //= require ... directives in those top-level files will determine the composition of final compiled file.

You can use these additional top-level files in your layouts to have different CSS & JS for certain views.