Alessandro Rodi

Posted on Jan 12 • Updated on Jan 14

Rails 7, Bootstrap 5 and importmaps without nodejs

#rails #ruby #turbo #bootstrap

Our goal: remove nodejs

As many other people in the Rails community, I started setting up brand new Rails 7 projects, and I need to re-learn, at least partially, how to bundle the assets and distribute them.

I never fell in love with TailwindCSS, and therefore I usually setup my Rails apps to use Bootstrap as default.

But what I really like about Rails 7, is the idea of being able to get rid of not only webpack, but of nodejs entirely. The new importmaps feature is really appealing to me and I'd like to use it as long as I don't need to bundle my javascript.

I have to say that esbuild does already a pretty cool job compared to webpack to simplify our lives, and make the process faster, but as long as I don't need bundling, I'd like to not have a package.json file and being dependent on nodejs for my Rails app.

A pure and simple sprockets + importmaps app with no Foreman, no bin/dev, no yarn build --watch stuff.

Bootstrap is made of two parts: CSS and javascript. So I want to use importmaps for the javascript part and rely on sprockets for the CSS compilation from SCSS.

Rails default

By default, Rails 7 provides a new option --css=bootstrap,
but with my great surprise, this option adds both jsbundling-rails, cssbundling-rails, a package.json and esbuild.

Not as expected. Not what I want.

How to configure Rails and Bootstrap without nodejs

Default is not what I want, but I can still reach the goal and here I'll explain how:

Stick with just rails new myapp
This will setup exactly the tools I want: sprockets and importmaps. It will also setup automatically for me stimulus and turbo, which is great because I use them most of the time anyway.

Add bootstrap gem and enable the gem sassc-rails in the Gemfile. This will allow us to compile bootstrap from SCSS without node.

You can simply import Bootstrap styles in app/assets/stylesheets/application.scss:

// here your custom bootstrap variables...
@import "bootstrap";

That's it for the CSS part. Running rails assets:precompile will generate what you want.

For the javascript part we need to do three things:

Precompile the bootstrap.min.js that comes with the gem, by adding to config/initializers/assets.rb

Rails.application.config.assets.precompile += %w( bootstrap.min.js popper.js )

pin the compiled asset in config/importmap.rb:

pin "popper", to: 'popper.js', preload: true
pin "bootstrap", to: 'bootstrap.min.js', preload: true

Include bootstrap in your app/javascript/application.js:

import "popper"
import "bootstrap"

I prefer this approach rather than pinning a CDN because we avoid diverging versions of Bootstrap.

Conclusion

This is all you need to have Bootstrap fully working on Rails 7 without using node.

If you like this guide you can follow me on Twitter.

Discussion (21)

Hashim G • Mar 4

Great write up Alessandro. What I don't understand is if import maps loads libraries via CDN, why is the Bootstrap gem still needed? You could load Bootstrap straight into the header without all this hassle.

Alessandro Rodi • Mar 10

Hi Hashim,
yes, correct. You could load Bootstrap Javascript part through CDN, but you would still need the gem to use the SCSS stylesheets and customise it. Now, since you have the gem, I think is wise to use also the JS wrapped within the gem, so that you don't risk having divergent versions (one from CDN and one from the Gem).
Of course, if you don't need to customise bootstrap, then you can load everything from CDN.

indikaimk • Feb 16

Tried the whole day to get Bootstrap working with Rails 7.
This method works awesome.

b1naryMan • Apr 10

Excellent and helpful article. Thanks Alessandro

Greg S • Jan 13

Thank you. Clears up a lot of confusion. The dependancies and/or defaults of the Rails 7 options aren't clear.

Another confusion for me. Is Sprockets the way forward or?

Probably would help if you showed all your changed or added code. Would help avoid the confusion @ochupa faced.

Duccio Armenise • Mar 29

Thanks bro.

Marco A. • May 8

In application.js :

import "popper"
import "bootstrap"

give this error for me on browser :

GET http://127.0.0.1:3000/assets/popper net::ERR_ABORTED 404 (Not Found)

GET http://127.0.0.1:3000/assets/bootstrap net::ERR_ABORTED 404 (Not Found)

full error log:

GET http://127.0.0.1:3000/assets/bootstrap net::ERR_ABORTED 404 (Not Found)
VM167 application-afa54e21226316d7c1dc5bb51d77586423db47a2adf4ce6a3fc09888e5eda505.js:2 Uncaught SyntaxError: Cannot use import statement outside a module (at VM167 application-afa54e21226316d7c1dc5bb51d77586423db47a2adf4ce6a3fc09888e5eda505.js:2:1)
application-afa54e21226316d7c1dc5bb51d77586423db47a2adf4ce6a3fc09888e5eda505.js:2 Uncaught SyntaxError: Cannot use import statement outside a module (at application-afa54e21226316d7c1dc5bb51d77586423db47a2adf4ce6a3fc09888e5eda505.js:2:1)
application-afa54e21226316d7c1dc5bb51d77586423db47a2adf4ce6a3fc09888e5eda505.js:2          GET http://127.0.0.1:3000/assets/popper net::ERR_ABORTED 404 (Not Found)

Marco A. • May 8

I miss the

bundle add bootstrap

ochupa • Jan 13 • Edited on Jan 13

Hey Alessandro, I'm trying to add 'bootstrap-rails' gem but getting error - Could not find gem 'bootstrap-rails' in rubygems repository rubygems.org/ or installed locally.
Could help with the proper name of bootstrap gem?

Janis Leuenberger • Jan 13

I think he is talking about github.com/twbs/bootstrap-rubygem. Therefore the gem name is just 'bootstrap'.
Correct me if I'm wrong.

Miguel Hargreaves Pimenta • Apr 30 • Edited on Apr 30

Hey!

I think this could be made simpler.
I believe the bootstrap-rubygem already injects in the assets throughs sprockets the bootstrap.min.js and SCSS files, and also the poper.js through the dependency popper_js-rubygem.

So, in terms of the JS files, all we need to do, after bundeling the bootstrap-rubygem, is import them in the application.js

import "./popper";
import "./bootstrap.min";

I have this working in development.

Eli Block • Mar 19 • Edited on Mar 19

Thanks for the guide! I believe it should be

pin "@popperjs/core", to: 'popper.js', preload: true

Miguel Hargreaves Pimenta • Apr 28

Actually it's not. The bootstrap gem dependes on the popper_js gem

Bootstrap tooltips and popovers depend on popper.js for positioning. The bootstrap gem already depends on the popper_js gem.

Marek Skrobacki • Feb 7

Don't think this really "works without node" - bootstrap gem does not work if there is no execjs runtime (just try removing executable permission from your NodeJS installation on the system) because autoprefixer needs it. Is there some magic way to force it to use something else?

Alessandro Rodi • Feb 17

Good point! Yes, you can also use another runtime: github.com/ai/autoprefixer-rails#u...

Joseph Mouhanna • Mar 1 • Edited on Mar 1

The initial tutorial works fine. However, if I copy the application to another folder, and delete all the parts that normally do not make it into GitHub (using a rails .gitignorefile), then run: bundle install, followed by a rails s command, then go to 127.0.0.1:3000/, I get the following error:

Showing /Users/joseph-mac/ProxLearn/Development/PLIConnectV2/repositories/pli2-no-node/app/views/layouts/application.html.slim where line # raised:

link_tree argument must be a directory
//= link_directory ../stylesheets .css
//= link_tree ../../javascript .js
//= link_tree ../../../vendor/javascript .js

Krzysztof Wawer • Jan 14

There should be bootstrap gem instead of bootstrap-rails gem

Minh Toàn • May 12

Helpful

ZT • Feb 2

Thx Alessandro! Following your approach I have added Simple Form:
gem 'simple_form'
and run the command:
bin/rails generate simple_form:install --bootstrap
It works fine.