[ruby-on-rails] How do I use CSS with a ruby on rails application?

How do I use CSS with RoR? When I link externally, I'm never able to see the files. I cp'd the .css file to every folder I could think of...views, controller, template, and nothing seems to work.

What do I need to do to enable external CSS files with a rails application? I'm new to rails, so forgive me if this is basic.

I did the following...

1. place your css file in the app/assets/stylesheets folder.
2. Add the stylesheet link <%= stylesheet_link_tag "filename" %> in your default layouts file (most likely application.html.erb)

I recommend this over using your public folder. You can also reference the stylesheet inline, such as in your index page.

Use the rails style sheet tag to link your main.css like this

<%= stylesheet_link_tag "main" %>

Go to

config/initializers/assets.rb

Once inside the assets.rb add the following code snippet just below the Rails.application.config.assets.version = '1.0'

Rails.application.config.assets.version = '1.0'
Rails.application.config.assets.precompile += %w( main.css )

Restart your server.

Have you tried putting it in your public folder? Whenever I have images or the like that I need to reference externally, I put it all there.

The original post might have been true back in 2009, but now it is actually incorrect now, and no linking is even required for the stylesheet as I see mentioned in some of the other responses. Rails will now do this for you by default.

• Place any new sheet .css (or other) in app/assets/stylesheets
• Test your server with rails-root/scripts/rails server and you'll see the link is added by rails itself.

You can test this with a path in your browser like testserverpath:3000/assets/filename_to_test.css?body=1

With Rails 6.0.0, create your "stylesheet.css" stylesheet at app/assets/stylesheets.

If you are using rails > 3 version, then there is a concept called asset pipeline. You could add your CSS to

app/assets/stylesheets

then it will automatically be picked up by the app. (this is useful as rails will automatically compress the CSS files)

read more here about the asset pipeline

To add to the above, the most obvious place to add stylesheet_link_tag is in your global application layout - application.html.erb.