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Integrating with Rails

This page explains how to integrate Cordwainer Elements with a Rails app.

Requirements

This integration has been tested with the following:

  • Rails >= 6
  • Node >= 12.10
  • Webpacker >= 5

Instructions

To get started using Cordwainer Elements with Rails, the following packages must be installed.

yarn add @cordwainer/cw-elements copy-webpack-plugin

Importing the Default Theme

The next step is to import Cordwainer Elements’s default theme (stylesheet) in app/javascript/stylesheets/application.scss. 

@import '@cordwainer/cw-elements/dist/themes/light';
@import '@cordwainer/cw-elements/dist/themes/dark'; // Optional dark theme

Fore more details about themes, please refer to Theme Basics.

Importing Required Scripts

After importing the theme, you’ll need to import the JavaScript files for Cordwainer Elements. Add the following code to app/javascript/packs/application.js. 

import '../stylesheets/application.scss'
import { setBasePath, CwAlert, CwAnimation, CwButton, ... } from '@cordwainer/cw-elements'

// ...

const rootUrl = document.currentScript.src.replace(/\/packs.*$/, '')

// Path to the assets folder (should be independent from the current script source path
// to work correctly in different environments)
setBasePath(rootUrl + '/packs/js/')

webpack Config

Next we need to add Cordwainer Elements’s assets to the final build output. To do this, modify config/webpack/environment.js to look like this. 

const { environment } = require('@rails/webpacker');

// Cordwainer Elements config
const path = require('path');
const CopyPlugin = require('copy-webpack-plugin');

// Add Cordwainer Elements assets to webpack's build process
environment.plugins.append(
  'CopyPlugin',
  new CopyPlugin({
    patterns: [
      {
        from: path.resolve(__dirname, '../../node_modules/@cordwainer/cw-elements/dist/assets'),
        to: path.resolve(__dirname, '../../public/packs/js/assets')
      }
    ]
  })
);

module.exports = environment;

Adding Pack Tags

The final step is to add the corresponding pack_tags to the page. You should have the following tags in the <head> section of app/views/layouts/application.html.erb. 

<!doctype html>
<html>
  <head>
    <!-- ... -->

    <%= stylesheet_pack_tag 'application', media: 'all', 'data-turbolinks-track': 'reload' %> <%= javascript_pack_tag
    'application', 'data-turbolinks-track': 'reload' %>
  </head>
  <body>
    <%= yield %>
  </body>
</html>

Now you can start using Cordwainer Elements components with Rails!