Okay, as a backend dev, keeping up with all the frontend tech isn’t always top of my list. So, when I found Symfony’s AssetMapper component, it was a genuinely happy moment! It means I can pull in JavaScript libraries for my PHP projects without needing to set up a whole Node.js environment.

You know how most JS libraries tell you to do this:

npm install <package_name>

But if you’re not using npm, that’s not helpful. AssetMapper gives us a great alternative:

php bin/console importmap:require <package_name>

Super convenient for getting those JS files into your project.

The Missing Style: A Quick Fix

Here’s the thing I quickly learned, which I think could be clearer in the documentation: importmap:require is excellent for grabbing JavaScript files, but it doesn’t automatically fetch other types of assets, like CSS.

For example, when I was adding a air-datepicker library, I ran:

php bin/console importmap:require air-datepicker

I then checked the public/assets/vendor/air-datepicker directory:

ls -la
drwxrwxrwx 2 grzegorz grzegorz  4096 Jan  6 15:18 .
drwxrwxrwx 4 grzegorz grzegorz  4096 Jan  6 14:08 ..
-rw-rw-rw- 1 grzegorz grzegorz 49161 Jan  6 15:12 air-datepicker.index-MG7WOVZ.js
-rw-rw-rw- 1 grzegorz grzegorz  2447 Jan  6 13:58 air-datepicker-ObXcu7-.js

The JavaScript files were there, but the CSS wasn’t. This meant the date picker appeared on the page completely unstyled, which definitely wasn’t the look I was going for. I knew the package included a CSS file from looking at its repository. While the AssetMapper docs do mention this behavior, it’s easy to miss.

The solution is straightforward: you just need to be explicit about importing other file types. For the CSS, I ran:

php bin/console importmap:require air-datepicker/air-datepicker.css

By specifying the full path to the CSS file within the package, AssetMapper downloaded it, and the date picker finally displayed with its intended styling. List of files withing a package can be seen in npm repository, in Code tab. Use path relative to root of the package.

So, for those of us using AssetMapper, it’s a great tool for managing frontend assets, just remember to manually import any non-JavaScript files like CSS!