Bower + Rails asset pipeline

.bowerrc

{
  "directory": "vendor/assets/components"
}

application.js

//= require pkgname

gistfile1.sh

npm install -g bower

# From your rails project directory
curl https://raw.github.com/gist/5874031/.bowerrc > ./.bowerrc

bower install <pkgname>

Prior ❤️ to @josh

Thanks Ben :)

You can also symlink /components to /vendor/assets/javascripts

You get the small added benefit of leaving the .bowerrc out of the repo so that other devs can personalize (if you are into that sort of thing)

JavaScripts

<3

If you're on Rails 3.2 (ie sprockets < 2.6), you'll need to do this in your application.js instead:

require package/path/to/js

instead. eg:

//= require underscore/underscore
//= require angular/angular

Nice, thanks @benschwarz! Also, if you want to completely replace the asset pipeline with Bower & Grunt check out Half Pipe.

Its also worth noting that some bower packages haven't defined the main attribute in the package definition file (thats bower.json) — in that case, you'll need to require them by a more complete path.

So instead of:

//= require jquery-placeholder

You'll need to use a more complete path to the library:

//= require jquery-placeholder/jquery.placeholder.js

FYI, I've been filing pull requests (1, 2, 3) for packages as I come across them. Until bower implements package validation, we're boned.

Is it possible somehow to use images with rails pipeline from the components?