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https://github.com/nickjj/flask-webpack

A Flask extension to manage assets with Webpack.
https://github.com/nickjj/flask-webpack

Last synced: about 2 months ago
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A Flask extension to manage assets with Webpack.

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README 

        
Hey! This repo is no longer supported!

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^



Flask-Webpack has been deprecated in favor of: https://github.com/nickjj/flask-static-digest



The new Flask-Static-Digest extension is easier to use, easier to configure,

works with any (or no) asset build tool and is completely stand alone.



Instead of depending on Webpack to handle md5 tagging assets and creating a

manifest, Flask-Static-Digest does all of that and now it even gzips your

files too.



This makes it a general purpose extension that you can use to make your static

files production ready.



This will be the final commit to this project. Farewell Flask-Webpack, you were

a good friend!



----



----



----



|PyPI version| |Build status|



What is Flask-Webpack?

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^



Managing assets can be a serious burden. Here's just a few things you get by

using this package:



- Minify assets

- Attach vendor prefixes to your CSS automatically

- Optimize image sizes

- Leverage the CommonJS module system to organize your Javascript

- Compile Markdown

- Compile 20+ client side template languages

- Compile LESS, SASS and any other CSS pre-processor you can imagine

- Compile Typescript, Coffeescript and any other *to-javascript* language

- Compile Ecmascript 6 (ES) down to ES 5

- Compile React JSX to JS with hot module reloading

- Near instant compile times, ~20-50ms is common on my workstation

- Optionally get source maps in development mode

- Serve your assets from a tricked out local development asset server

- Cache all assets forever because their file names get md5-tagged

- The only runtime you need other than Python is NodeJS

- Never deal with file watchers again because it's all taken care of for you

- And much more...



All of the features above are the direct result of using `Webpack `_

to manage your assets. The huge win here besides the obvious is that the

functionality is outside of this package.



That means you have free reign to pick and choose what you want without

having to worry about Flask-Webpack versions. If a new Webpack plugin becomes

available, you can use it immediately.



What does this package do then?

-------------------------------



It sets up a few template tags so you can access the assets inside of your

jinja templates.



**It means you can type this:**



``Hamburger``



**...and once your jinja template has been compiled, you will see this:**



``Hamburger``



Now you can happily tell your frontend proxy to cache that hamburger image for

an entire year. If you ever change the hamburger, the md5 will change but you

do not need to change any of your templates because the ``asset_url_for``

tag knows how to look it up.



Global template tags

--------------------



- **asset_url_for(asset_relative_path)** to resolve an asset name

- **javascript_tag(\*asset_relative_paths)** to write out 1 or more script tags

- **stylesheet_tag(\*asset_relative_paths)** to write out 1 or more stylesheet tags



Both the javascript and stylesheet tags accept multiple arguments. If you give

it more than argument it will create as many tags as needed.



Installation

^^^^^^^^^^^^



``pip install Flask-Webpack``



Quick start

^^^^^^^^^^^



::



    from flask import Flask

    from flask_webpack import Webpack



    webpack = Webpack()



    app = Flask(__name__)

    webpack.init_app(app)



You can view a complete working example in the `test app `_.



There's also a `blog post and short video `_ explaining how to use this extension.



How does it work?

-----------------



It expects you to have built a manifest file and it handles the rest. You can

build this manifest file using a plugin I wrote for Webpack. You can find that

plugin `here `_.



This process is done automatically upon starting the dev asset server or building

your assets to prepare for a production release. All of that is taken care of in

the ``webpack.config.js`` file.



Settings

^^^^^^^^



``Flask-Webpack`` is configured like most Flask extensions. Here's the available

options:



- ``WEBPACK_MANIFEST_PATH``: default ``None``

    - **Required:** You may consider using ``./build/manifest.json``, it's up to you.



- ``WEBPACK_ASSETS_URL``: default ``publicPath from the webpack.config.js file``

    - **Optional:** Use this asset url instead of the ``publicPath``.

    - You would set this to your full domain name or CDN in production.



Learn more

^^^^^^^^^^



Webpack knowledge

-----------------



Most of what you'll need to learn is related to Webpack specifically but the

example app in this repo is enough to get you started. Here's a few resources

to help you get started with Webpack:



- `What is Webpack? `_

- `Getting started `_

- `List of loaders `_

- `Advanced setup with React `_



Help! My assets do not work outside of development

--------------------------------------------------



I see, so basically the problem is you're using the ``url()`` function in your

stylesheets and are referencing a relative path to an asset, such as:



``src: url('../../fonts/CoolFont.eot')``



The above works in development mode because that's where the file is

located but in production mode the asset is not there. The ``asset_url_for``

template helper handles all of this for you on the server side but now you need

some assistance  on the client side as well.



You have a few options here depending on if you're using CSS, SASS or something

else. If you're using straight CSS you will need to pre-prend all of your paths

with a special identifier.



If you were to re-write the example from above, it would now be:



``src: url('~!file!../../fonts/CoolFont.eot')``



That will automatically get expanded to a path that works in every environment.



If you're using SASS you can create your own function to make things easier to

work with on a day to day basis. Something like this should suffice:



::



    @function asset-url($path) {

      @return url('~!file!' + $path);

    }



Now you can call it like this and everything will work:



``src: asset-url('../../fonts/CoolFont.eot')``



Feel free to make additional helper functions that let you abstract away the

relative prefix such as ``font-url`` or ``image-url``. It really depends on how

your assets are set up.



Contributors

^^^^^^^^^^^^



- Nick Janetakis 



.. |PyPI version| image:: https://badge.fury.io/py/flask-webpack.png

   :target: https://pypi.python.org/pypi/flask-webpack

.. |Build status| image:: https://secure.travis-ci.org/nickjj/flask-webpack.png

   :target: https://travis-ci.org/nickjj/flask-webpack