In this episode, we create a chat application using Rails 7, esbuild (JS Bundling), CSS Bundling, Hotwire, and Action Text. We also dive into some issues around CSS Bundling and Action Text.

Import maps let you import JavaScript modules using logical names that map to versioned/digested files – directly from the browser. This will be a default in the upcoming Rails 7.

With Rails 7 coming out soon, it's a good time to look at what it could take to upgrade our existing applications to esbuild. In this episode, we start with a Rails 6 application and begin the upgrade process by removing Webpacker and switching over to esbuild.

Use esbuild to bundle your JavaScript, then deliver it via the asset pipeline in Rails. This gem provides an installer to get you going with esbuild in a new Rails application.

CSS Bundling for Rails provides a new way for importing and managing our CSS assets in Rails Applications, but it does have some challenges around a few libraries (specifically font awesome and a few others) which we'll look at in this episode.