Jekyll Assets

Jekyll Assets is a drop in asset pipeline that uses Sprockets to build specifically for Jekyll. It utilizes Sprockets, and Jekyll to try and achieve a clean, and extensible assets platform that supports plugins, caching, converting your assets. It even supports proxying of said assets in a way that does not interfere with either Sprockets, or Jekyll, or your own source. By default you can add Jekyll Assets to your Gemfile, as a plugin, and have it act as a drop-in replacement for Jekyll's basic SASS processors, with you only having to add it to your Gemfile, and updating your <img>, and <link>.

Installing

gem "jekyll-assets", group: :jekyll_plugins
gem "jekyll-assets", git: "https://github.com/envygeeks/jekyll-assets", group: :jekyll_plugins
gem "jekyll-assets", "~> x.x.alpha", group: :jekyll_plugins

System Requirements

  • ruby: 2.6+
  • sprockets: 4.0+
  • uglifier: 4.0
  • jekyll: 3.5+

Configuration

The configuration file is the same as Jekyll's, which is _config.yml. Except we use the special key called assets inside of that file. All values listed below are default, you need not copy these into your configuration file unless you plan to change a value. Setting a value makes it explicit, and shared across both production, and development.

# _config.yml
assets:
  source_maps: true
  destination: "/assets"
  compression: false
  gzip: false
  defaults:
    integrity:
      {css,img,js}: false
  caching:
    enabled: true
    path: ".jekyll-cache/assets"
    type: file
  # --
  # Assets you wish to always have compiled.
  #   This can also be combined with raw_precompile which
  #   copies assets without running through the pipeline
  #   making them ultra fast.
  # --
  precompile: []
  raw_precompile: [
    #
  ]
  # --
  # baseurl: whether or not to append site.baseurl
  # destination: the folder you store them in on the CDN.
  # url: the CDN url (fqdn, or w/ identifier).
  # --
  cdn:
    baseurl: false
    destination: false
    url: null
  # --
  # See lib/jekyll/assets/config.rb
  #   for a list of defaults
  # --
  sources:
    - _assets/custom
  plugins:
    css: { autoprefixer: {}}
    img: { optim: {}}

Tag {% asset %}, <img>

{% asset src @magick:double alt='This is my alt' %}
{% asset src @magick:double alt='This is my alt' %}
<img src="src" asset="@magick:double" alt="This is my alt">
<img src="src" alt="This is my alt" asset>

Defaults

We provide several defaults that get set when you run an asset, depending on content type, this could be anything from type, all the way to integrity. If there is a default attribute you do not wish to be included, you can disable the attribute with !attribute, and it will be skipped over.

{% asset img.png !integrity %}
{% asset bundle.css !type   %}

Arguments

Our tags will take any number of arguments, arbitrary or not... and convert them to HTML, and even attach them to your output if the HTML processor you use accepts that kind of data. This applies to anything but hashes, and arrays. So adding say, a class, or id, is as easy as doing id="val" inside of your tag arguments.

Built In

Arg Description Type Return Type
@data data URI */* text
@inline CSS <style> text/css text/html
@path Path */* text

Responsive Images

<img> usage

Configuration

Option Tag Option Type Description
automatic @automatic Boolean Upscale & Downscale images
automatic_min_width @min_width Integer Stop scaling before this width
automatic_scales scales String The scales to use
discovery_scales scales String The scales to look for
automatic_upscale @upscale Boolean Upscale, the source instead of downscale
discovery @discovery Boolean Responsive if an img matching source w/ @x exists

Each option is in the responsive namespace regardless of whether it's inside of the tag, or configuration.

Example

{% asset img.png @pic
    srcset:max-width="200"
    srcset:min-width="200"
    srcset:scales=1x
    srcset:scales=2x
    srcset:scales=3x
        %}
<img srcset="
    img-<hash>.png 3x,
    img-<hash>.png 2x,
    img-<hash>.png 1x"
        >

Discovery

When using discovery based responsive images, we will only do responsive images if we can find assets that match your scales based on the source file. For example if you do {% asset img.png responsive:discovery responsive:scales=1x responsive:scales=1.5x responsive:scales=2x %} then we will expect [email protected] and img.png@2x to exist. For any image that doesn't exist it will be skipped, and that scale will not be included!

Automatic

Automatic responsive images/scaling can either upscale, or downscale. This is useful if you have a ton of images for blog posts, and you always want to provide a single most high quality version and then have us downscale those, or if you have an image and wish us to upscale it! The argv1 of {% asset img.png %} is where the source is derived from. Given you give 2x, 1.5x and 1x if you choose to downscale, the source will be assumed to be 2x, and we will downscale to 1.5x and half. If you chose to upscale, the source will be assumed to be 1x, and we will multiply the width by 1.5 and 2

Liquid

We support liquid arguments for tag values (but not tag keys), and we also support Liquid pre-processing (with your Jekyll context) of most files if they end with .liquid. This will also give you access to our filters as well as their filters, and Jekyll's filters, and any tags that are globally available.

{% asset '{{ site.bg_img }}' %}
{% asset '{{ site.bg_img }}' proxy:key='{{ value }}' %}
{% asset {{\ site.bg_img\ }} %}

.sass, .scss

body {
  background-image: asset_url("'{{ site.bg_img }}'");
  background-image: asset_url("'{{ site.bg_img }}' proxy:key='{{ value }}'");
  background-image: asset_url("{{\ site.bg_img\ }}");
}

.liquid.ext

.ext.liquid

Supported file types:

  • .css
  • .sass
  • .scss
  • .js
  • .es6
  • .coffee
  • .svg

You have full access to your entire global context from any liquid processing we do. Depending on where you do it, you might or might not also have access to your local (page) context as well. You can also do whatever you like, and be as dynamic as you like, including full loops, and conditional Liquid, since we pre-process your text files. On Sprockets 4.x you can use .liquid.ext and .ext.liquid, but because of the way Sprockets 3.x works, we have opted to only allow the default extension of .ext.liquid when running on "Old Sprockets" (AKA 3.x.) If you would like Syntax + Liquid you should opt to install Sprockets 4.x so you can get the more advanced features.

Importing

**In order to import your Liquid pre-processed assets inside of Liquid or JS you should use a Sprockets //require=, Sprockets does not integrate that deeply into JavaScript and SASS to allow you to @import and pre-process.

.sass, .scss Helpers

We provide two base helpers, asset_path to return the path of an asset, and asset_url which will wrap asset_path into a url() for you, making it easy for you to extract your assets and their paths inside of SCSS. All other helpers that Sprockets themselves provide will use our asset_path helper, so you can use them like normal, including with Liquid

body {
  background-image: asset_url("img.png");
}

Proxies, and Other Arguments

Any argument that is supported by our regular tags, is also supported by our .sass/.scss helpers, with a few obvious exceptions (like srcset). This means that you can wrap your assets into magick if you wish, or imageoptim or any other proxy that is able to spit out a path for you to use. The general rule is, that if it returns a path, or @data then it's safe to use within .scss/.sass, otherwise it will probably throw.

body {
  background-image: asset_url("img.png @magick:half")
}

*Note: we do not validate your arguments, so if you send a conflicting *argument that results in invalid CSS, you are responsible for that, in *that if you ship us srcset we might or might not throw, depending on how *the threads are ran. So it might ship HTML if you do it wrong, and it will *break your CSS, this is by design so that if possible, in the future, we can allow more flexibility, or so that plugins can change based on arguments.

Listing Assets in Liquid

We provide all your assets as a hash of Liquid Drops so you can get basic info that we wish you to have access to without having to prepare the class. Note: The keys in the assets array are the names of the original files, e.g., use *.scss instead of *.css.

{{ assets["bundle.css"].content_type }} => "text/css"
{{ assets["images.jpg"].width  }} => 62
{{ assets["images.jpg"].height }} => 62

The current list of available accessors:

Method Description
content_type The RFC content type
filename The full path to the asset
height The asset height
width The asset width
digest_path The prefixed path
integrity The SRI hash

Looping

{% for k,v in assets %}
  {{ k }}
{% endfor %}

Dynamic

Using Liquid Drop assets, you can check whether an asset is present.

{% if assets[page.image] %}{% img '{{ page.image }}' %}
{% else %}
  {% img default.jpg %}
{% endif %}

Filter

{{ src | asset:"@magick:double magick:quality=92" }}

Hooks

Point Name Instance Args
:env :before_init ✔ ✗
:env :after_init ✔ ✗
:env :after_write ✔ ✗
:config :before_merge ✗ Config{}
:asset :before_compile ✗ Asset, Manifest
:asset :after_compression ✗ input{}, output{}, type=/

Example

Jekyll::Assets::Hook.register :env, :before_init do
  append_path "myPluginsCustomPath"
end
Jekyll::Assets::Hook.register :config, :init do |c|
  c.deep_merge!({
    plugins: {
      my_plugin: {
        opt: true
      }
    }
  })
end

Plugin Hooks

Your plugin can also register it's own hooks on our Hook system, so that you can trigger hooks around your stuff as well, this is useful for extensive plugins that want more power.

Jekyll::Assets::Hook.add_point(
  :plugin, :hook
)
Jekyll::Assets::Hook.trigger(:plugin, :hook)  { |v| v.call(:arg) }
Jekyll::Assets::Hook.trigger(:plugin, :hook) do |v|
  instance_eval(&v)
end

Default Plugins

Google Closure Alternates

gem "crass"

Once crass is added, we will detect vendor prefixes, and add /* @alternate */ to them, with or without compression enabled, and with protections against compression stripping.

Font Awesome

gem "font-awesome-sass"
@import "font-awesome-sprockets";
@import "font-awesome";
html {
  // ...
}

CSS Auto-Prefixing

gem "autoprefixer-rails"
assets:
  autoprefixer:
    browsers:
    - "last 2 versions"
    - "IE > 9"

Bootstrap

gem "bootstrap-sass" # 3.x
gem "bootstrap"      # 4.x
@import 'bootstrap';
html {
  // ...
}
//=require _bootstrap.css
//=require bootstrap/_reboot.css

ImageMagick

gem "mini_magick"

Args

See the MiniMagick docs to get an idea what <value> can be.

Name Accepts Value
magick:compress ✔
magick:resize ✔
magick:format* ✔
magick:quality ✔
magick:rotate ✔
magick:gravity ✔
magick:crop ✔
magick:extent ✔
magick:flip ✔
magick:background ✔
magick:transparency ✔
@magick:double ✗
@magick:half ✗

* magick:format requires an ext or a valid MIME content type like image/jpeg or .jpg. We will ImageMagick -format on your behalf with that information by getting the extension.

ImageOptim

gem "image_optim"
gem "image_optim_pack" # Optional

Configuration

assets:
  plugins:
    img:
      optim:
        {}

Check the ImageOptim to get idea about configuration options, and to get a list of stuff you need to install on your system to use it, if you do not wish to use "image_optim_pack".

To disable ImageOptim (i.e. for development builds), use following configuration:

assets:
  plugins:
    img:
      optim: false

Args

Name Accepts Value
optim ✔
@optim ✗

By default @optim will use the default jekyll, otherwise you can provide optim=preset and have it used that preset. ImageOptim provides advanced, and default as their default presets, you can define your own preset via Jekyll Assets configuration listed above.

LibVIPS

gem "ruby-vips"

The "ruby-vips" gem requires a functional install of (libvips)[https://github.com/libvips/libvips/].

Args

Name Accepts Value
vips:crop ✔
vips:resize ✔
vips:format ✔
vips:quality ✔
vips:compression ✔
@vips:near_lossless ✗
@vips:interlace ✗
@vips:lossless ✗
vips:strip ✔
@vips:strip ✗
@vips:double ✗
@vips:half ✗
vips:resize

Accepts an argument of either 'width', 'x' or 'x'. All resize processes keep the original aspect ratio so width and height are used to specify the bounding box for the resize process.

If no height is specified the image is resized to fit withing a bounding box of 'width' x 'width'. Similarly specifying just a height sets the bounding box for the resize to 'height' x 'height'. This form only exists for compatibility with the "magick" plugin.

{% asset img.png vips:resize='x100' %}
{% asset img.png vips:resize='100x50' %}
{% asset img.png vips:resize='100x' %}
vips:format

Convert the image to the specified format. Format support depends on the compile options of the libvips library. Format is specified as the file extension such as '.jpg', '.webp' or '.png'.

{% asset image.png vips:format='.webp' %}
vips:crop

Only has any effect when combined with "vips:resize". Use the following arguments (all except "fill" are documented here):

  • fill: resize the image to the specified size while maintaining the aspect ratio then fills the "empty" background with blurred version of the original image
  • entropy: use an entropy measure
  • high: position the crop towards the high coordinate
  • attention: look for features likely to draw human attention
  • low: position the crop towards the low coordinate
  • centre: crop from the centre
  • none: do nothing
{% asset image.jpg vips:resize='100' vips:crop='fill' %}
vips:strip

Removes metadata from images. This is set "true" by default, but can be disabled by passing "false".

{% asset image.jpg vips:strip=false %}

Building Your Own Plugins

Globals

Name Class
env Jekyll::Assets::Env
args Liquid::Tag::Parser{}
jekyll Jekyll::Site
asset Sprockets::Asset

HTML

Name Class Type
@doc Nokogiri:: XML::Document image/svg+xml
@doc Nokogiri::HTML::Document image/*