Can't use Bootstrap 5 behind proxy

[AlbertRapp]

Hi there 👋

Unfortunately, setting

template:
  bootstrap: 5

in my _pkgdown.yml file doesn't work for me and I get the following error:

Copying <pkgdown>/BS5/assets/pkgdown.js to pkgdown.js
Error in utils::download.file(file$url, cache_path, quiet = TRUE, mode = "wb") : 
  cannot open URL 'https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/headroom/0.11.0/headroom.min.js'
In addition: Warning message:
In utils::download.file(file$url, cache_path, quiet = TRUE, mode = "wb") :
  URL 'https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/headroom/0.11.0/headroom.min.js': status was 'Couldn't resolve host name'

I'm assuming this happens because I am behind a proxy and pkgdown seems to not be able to fetch the files for headroom.js. The interesting thing is that copying the files before that like <pkgdown>/BS5/assets/lightswitch.js works and for Bootstrap 3 I also don't get any issue (even though in the resulting docs headroom.js is still included via a <script> tag). Also it's worth noting that I've already tried setting options(pkgdown.internet = FALSE) but this didn't have any effect.

[jayhesselberth]

Yes, the BS5 configuration will require an outside line to download external dependencies.

Some of the JS / CSS is included in the package (lightswitch.js) and is just copied from disk.

BS3 doesn't use the new dependency resolution approach, so you also won't need a connection.

I guess this might be an argument to keep the BS3 approach around.

[jayhesselberth]

We might also throw a more informative error early a package is using BS5 but there is no internet connection.

[AlbertRapp]

Yes, the BS5 configuration will require an outside line to download external dependencies.

Why though? The Bootstrap 3 version can (at least for headroom.min.js) also use the JS scripts by including them via a <script> tag and linking to the JS file on a CDN. That's why Bootstrap 3 can be used to build the pkgdown website. Of course, this requires an internet connection to properly load the pkgdown page in the browser. But for building the page, that's not necessary. Is it possible to make that possible for BS5 as well?

[maelle]

👋 @AlbertRapp here's the change that was made: now external assets are downloaded at build time #2249

[AlbertRapp]

Hi @maelle 👋 Thanks for the tip. This part explains the reasoning perfectly for me:

Direct asset inclusion might be relevant to people trying to strictly adhere to privacy regulations like GDPR, since otherwise IP addresses of site visitors are sent to the asset CDN operators (based in the US) on page load.

Now, I'm kind of at a conundrum though. I can set a proxy to download external assets but then the git commands that are part of the building processes don't work anymore. I'm guessing that happens due to pushes to an internal repo. Any chance it's possible to provide the external assets via the pkgdown/ directory? 🤔

[camillemndn]

Hi, i do not know if that is relevant to your issue, but since #2249 I have a similar error message when trying to build a site without an internet connection, even though options(pkgdown.internet = FALSE) was set.

Would there be an option to cache the external dependencies beforehand if options(pkgdown.internet = FALSE) is set? Thank you!