External v2 - Route Based Asset Management | Libraries & Helpers

#1 / Feb 17, 2011 2:09pm

darkhouse
323 posts

Greetings! I’ve been off the forums for a while, but I’m back, with a vengeance. I recently rewrote my External library (see previous version).

Here is the link to the new library. https://github.com/darkhouse/External

There were a lot of things I wanted to incorporate into it so I’ve rewritten it from scratch. Version 2 is based on the same principle that you can specify assets for certain routes, but with some new, I think cool, features. I’ve explained them in more detail on the wiki, but here’s a summary.

Groups - Everything is group based now (inspired by tonydewan’s Carabiner) so you can load only assets from a specific group if you want. You can also load assets in more than one place on a page, so you can target different assets for different parts of your page.

Inheritance! - You can specify assets for a route, but also inherit assets from another route.

Exclusions - when inheriting, you can tell it to ignore certain groups.

Weights - you can load the assets in whatever order you want.

LESS.js - I use LESS.js myself, so I’ve added support for that.

Pretty Output - There is a tabs param so that the output matches the indentation of the rest of your code.

There are more details on the wiki, and some usage code. Also, I’ve added a sample config file that has the settings I used for a site recently. That should give you a pretty good idea how to setup your config file.

Thanks to everyone who used my original, and I hope this new version helps make things even better.
#2 / Feb 21, 2011 10:56pm

jarthur
2 posts

Not sure if i’m doing something wrong, but on PHP 5.3 i get the following error/warning:

Severity: Warning
Message: Parameter 1 to array_multisort() expected to be a reference, value given
Filename: libraries/External.php
Line Number: 325

I think it is related to this: http://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=43568

#3 / Feb 21, 2011 11:19pm

jarthur

2 posts

This code change worked for me (starting on line 311 of the External.php file):

private function _multisort(){
        $args = func_get_args();
        $data = array_shift($args);
                if (!is_array($data))
                    return false;

                $multisort_params = array();
        foreach ($args as $n => $field) {
            if (is_string($field)) {
                ${"tmp_$n"} = array();
                foreach ($data as $key => $row){
                    ${"tmp_$n"}[$key] = $row[$field];
                }
                $multisort_params[$n] = &${"tmp_$n"};
            }
        }
        $multisort_params[] = &$data;
        call_user_func_array('array_multisort',$multisort_params);
        return array_pop($multisort_params);
    }

#4 / Feb 22, 2011 12:26am

darkhouse
323 posts

Thanks, I’ll make this change - I grabbed that multisort code from php.net, I didn’t modify it, and it was working fine for me on v5.3.5
#5 / Feb 22, 2011 2:20am

darkhouse
323 posts

I’ve changed this, and modified the cachebusting system based on CroNiX’s suggestion. Thanks guys. I’ve also added some better documentation, added a markdown readme file which goes over the config file in pretty good detail (I think). As always, if anyone has any questions, please feel free to ask. Thanks!
#6 / Jul 17, 2011 8:39pm

dchankhour
6 posts

I have issues with sub pages. i have a controller search/advanced with the url http://mydomain.com/search/advanced but the css is being loaded as follow

search/advanced/includes/styles.css

where the link should be just

includes/styles.css

any thoughts on this one?

Thanks
#7 / Jul 17, 2011 11:47pm

darkhouse
323 posts

dchankhour: are you using a <base> tag?
#8 / Jul 19, 2011 1:24am

icomefromthenet
22 posts

might just be use this in my next project, beats hard-coding in controllers thanks for posting.
#9 / Jul 21, 2011 3:45am

dchankhour
6 posts

Sorry darkhouse, i’m not sure what you meant by <base>.

I basically have my site in a subfolder. in the site i have a search folder and i have home.php and an advanced.php controller in the search folder. when i view the /search/home every thing works fine but when i view search/advanced it does not load any css files.

it basically try loading http://localhost/mysite/search/includes/styles.css

instead of http://localhost/mystie/includes/styles.css

thanks for your assistance.
#10 / Jul 21, 2011 9:49am
darkhouse
323 posts
dchankhour: Right, you need a <base> tag. Put this in your <head>
```
<base href="<?php echo base_url(); ?>"></base>
```
If you’re not already loading the url helper, I would autoload it. Just add ‘url’ to the helper array in application/config/autoload.php and then base_url() will work.
#11 / Jul 23, 2011 6:06pm

dchankhour
6 posts

Thanks a lot.

That worked.

#12 / Jul 27, 2011 9:31am

quasiperfect

132 posts

i set external and external config to autoload
when i try to use $this->external->get(‘admin_login’, ‘head’, false, 4);
i get

A PHP Error was encountered
Severity: Warning
Message: Missing argument 1 for CI_External::__construct(), called in D:\server\www\qpshop\system\core\Loader.php on line 996 and defined
Filename: libraries/external.php
Line Number: 26

this is my config file

<?php if(!defined('BASEPATH')) exit('No direct script access allowed');
$config['routes'] = array(
    'all' => array(
        'css' => array(
            array('data' => 'assets/css/reset.css', 'group' => 'head', 'weight' => 1),
            array('data' => 'assets/css/final.css', 'group' => 'head', 'weight' => 999),
        ),
        'js' => array(
            array('data' => 'assets/js/libs/less.js', 'group' => 'head', 'weight' => 10),
            array('data' => 'assets/js/libs/modernizr.js', 'group' => 'head', 'weight' => 10),
            array('data' => 'assets/js/libs/jquery.js', 'group' => 'foot', 'weight' => 1),
            array('data' => 'assets/js/libs/apprise.js', 'group' => 'foot', 'weight' => 2),
            array('data' => 'assets/js/libs/fancybox.js', 'group' => 'foot', 'weight' => 3),
        )
    ),
    'admin' => array(
        'css' => array(
            array('data' => 'assets/css/admin/common.less', 'type' => 'less', 'group' => 'head', 'weight' => 1),
        ),
        'inherit' => array(
            'parent' => array('assets' => 'all')
        )
    ),
    'admin_login' => array(
        'css' => array(
            array('data' => 'assets/css/admin/login.less', 'type' => 'less', 'group' => 'head', 'weight' => 1),
        ),
        'inherit' => array(
            'parent' => array('assets' => 'admin')
        )
    )
);

$config['default_cache'] = true;

what i’m doing wrong ?

Edit 1
if i don’t autoload the config file i don’t get any error but no results

my folder structure is
-application
-assets
—css
—js
-system

Edit2
if i call $this->external->get(‘all’, ‘head’, false, 4); it works

so i think i don’t understand how inheritance works
if i call the route admin_login i want to get admin and from admin it should get all
but i get nothing

Edit3
ok now i got it by route you really mean route like in controller/function/
but i have a new problem i use languge uri identifier
so my urls are like this site.com/language/controller/function
how can i make external to ignore the language ?

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