Remove assets and asset-packagist.org

[mtangoo]

As part of Yii 2.2, it is good to remove assets from the core and make it a separate package.
This discussion is to get ideas on what is the best way to execute this task.

Feel free to share whatever you think will be the best approach.

[schmunk42]

How would you handle AssetBundles?
Literally every extension uses them.

[terabytesoftw]

It's strange i use https://github.com/php-forge/foxy in https://github.com/yii3-extensions/app and it works correctly even with bun, which was the error.

https://github.com/yii3-extensions/app/blob/8ec3ac6455be5fab228d796e82ffee4219e86a2f/composer.json#L115

[terabytesoftw]

btw in Yii3 there is no download manager for the assets, you use whatever you want, from asset-packagist.org, foxy, or simply npm.

[schmunk42]

btw in Yii3 there is no download manager for the assets, you use whatever you want, from asset-packagist.org, foxy, or simply npm.

How do you use asset-packagist.org with Yii3, could you point me to the docs?

works correctly even with bun, which was the error.

First I tried yarn, and got:

Merging Composer dependencies in the asset package
Installing yarn dependencies
Usage: yarn [options]

yarn: error: no such option: --non-interactive
Fallback to previous state for the Asset package
Fallback to previous state for Composer

In Locker.php line 352:
                                 
  Undefined array key "version"  

which looks like an incompatible yarn version?!

Then I tried to move to npm and got:

In FilenameFilterIterator.php line 43:
                                                   
  [Error]                                          
  Class "Symfony\Component\Finder\Glob" not found  
                                                   

Exception trace:
  at /app/vendor/symfony/finder/Iterator/FilenameFilterIterator.php:43

Bit I didn't have time to dig into this, could also be some edge cases from the existing project-template (phd5).

[terabytesoftw]

Could you tell me the versions you use to reproduce and fix it, composer show?

Symfony console.
npm,
yarn,
composer.

[schmunk42]

Could you tell me the versions you use to reproduce and fix it, composer show?

I'll report directly to your repo if I find time to try this in-depth.

[mtangoo]

If it is correct, if we move the assets to separate packages, it will break everything, because the dependencies must be added to the extensions.

But this is a composer one line. So it is not a big thing to do. Or do I miss something?

[terabytesoftw]

btw in Yii3 there is no download manager for the assets, you use whatever you want, from asset-packagist.org, foxy, or simply npm.

How do you use asset-packagist.org with Yii3, could you point me to the docs?

Very simple: https://github.com/yiisoft/yii-bootstrap5?tab=readme-ov-file#install-assets

[razvanphp]

This a far more extreme suggestion than what I had in mind with #20162

Anyway, I think the pain-points should be resolved, rather than create new breaking changes just to be on par with what's new on FE world today. For example, the bundling and minifier with java and external shell commands is way outdated, we should use something more established in the industry by now like parcel (with lighningcss).

Should not be so complicated for anybody that can do composer install to also run a few npm commands and run parcel itself. We should only make sure we have a valid package.json in core that can be used to install all needed deps (even with foxy).

I really love PHP, but I think we went too far with the whole asset management in Yii to avoid some simple, established ways to install JS packages. Today, many tools can install those deps besides npm, one can even use bun or deno for example.

[schmunk42]

If someone has the time, here would be an idea for a PoC:

• Fork (all) yiisoft/yii2-... repos with assets
  • Remove bower-, npm- entries from composer.json in forked repos.
• Fork yii2-advanced-app or yii2-basic-app
  • Use min-stability: dev
  • Remove asset-packagist
  • Add forked repos to composer.json
  • Run composer update

If this works, step 1 is done :)

In the forked repos add a package.json with the corresponding assets and adjust asset bundles to node_modules.
Install foxy and run another composer update or install your assets manually or any tool you want.

Things should be working now.

[razvanphp]

but there is one big blockere for this plan, somebody from the yii team needs to publish the yii-assets to NPM (yii.activeForm.js, yii.captcha.js, yii.gridView.js, yii.js, yii.validation.js)

[mtangoo]

This should not be hard. If we agree on the most pertinent things, it will be done

[mtangoo]

@schmunk42 I will try to find time and test that!

[terabytesoftw]

Hi, i have done some testing and found out that you can remove the assets from the composer.json, just add them in the package.json, and when you install you can just use npm or php-forge/foxy, just adding it is an app-basic or app-advanced, and what you need to do is map bower-asset and npm-asset to node_module, something quite simple 😃

[razvanphp]

How "others" are doing it, using modern FE tooling: https://laravel.com/docs/11.x/vite

[terabytesoftw]

It would be great to update Yii2, not only the PHP versions, but part of its architecture, that would be a big BC, and a lot of work.

[razvanphp]

indeed, but let's try to retrofit at least some modern tools for asset handling, keeping the BC, I think this is doable....

[ItsReddi]

From my view, that should definitely take place in 2.2 since the current ecosystem is no longer reliable and maintained.
#20067

[mtangoo]

Then load node_modules automatically? Is that what you are suggesting?
Making it as alias @npm should not be hard. Then use the alias to load assets!

[schmunk42]

Here's a PoC idea: #20164 (reply in thread)

I just want to stress, that using npm with composer is another dead-end. There are a huge amount of packages which use a different version of the same lib - which is not possible with composer, but no problem with native npm.

All asset packages need to be moved from composer.json to packages.json

[mtangoo]

I see. That will be a way cleaner and will give developer flexibility on tooling. I don't see why it shouldn't work

[schmunk42]

I don't see why it shouldn't work

What do you mean specifically (removing asset packages or using npm packages with composer)?

[mtangoo]

Removing packages from composer and install them independently or using some tools line foxy thing.
Should work fine!

[diego-mathis]

Using assets with Yii2 should work without extras. In this sense the Yii Javascript libraries need to be released into the JS Oecosystem.
I had a look at foxy, it seems great - as it uses the specified underlying package manager.
But in general I believe, foxy should be sugar - making your life easier, as in installing nested dependencies.
However, not every PHP package is built around foxy, so there will be exceptions - where u need to add packages to packages.json despite using foxy.
So in my opinion, everything should be possible without foxy.
Also if the framework includes foxy, and foxy allows to use bun, npm .. etc... wouldnt that require a test for all those variants?

[terabytesoftw]

As i explained in the PR, the framework in its 2.2 branch is free of any asset installer. It has its package.json, and that is enough to use any available package manager, be it npm, bun, pnpm, yarn, etc. In the PR i use Foxy because we already used it in the 2.2 branch, but unlike the 2.0 branch where asset-packagist is used, it is only a dev dependency, so the choice is up to the developer, you are free to choose. On the other hand, Foxy supports all existing asset managers: https://github.com/php-forge/foxy/tree/main/tests/Asset

btw this approach solves this master branch problem:

#20265 (comment)

[mtangoo]

Well, if you remove something like asset-packagist which wasn't developed by YiiSoft but a third party (an excellent contribution to the community) then the replacement should just work like the former.

For seasoned dev it is not an issue, but for beginners, it is. That's the gist of the discussion and the reason to put this package so that it will still auto install.

It is trading a third-party package to another. But for better results, if you wish.

So if not this, we still need to come with a solution to solve this problem.