[Chartjs]-Get Chart.js to work with ImportMap in Rails 7

I had the same struggle this weekend and kept happening upon this article, so posting my solution here.

A couple things of note:

1. Chart.js seems to have some hardcoded accessory files that aren’t registered as dependencies in the CDN. For example, mine kept 404ing on c1719c72.js and chunks/helpers.segment.js. For this reason, it works better if you don’t use the –download flag when running bin/importmap pin. Credit to this article: Using chart.js with importmaps in rail 7.
2. Importing Chart from chart.js requires a little magic from here: Chart.js – Where do I find which components should be registered?. Specifically, lines 3-4 of barchart_controller.js below.

Here’s a summary of the file contents that worked for me on a fairly plain Rails 7 build with importmaps:

config/importmap.rb – Note: Running bin/importmap pin chart.js should pull in one dependency (@kurkle/color). Be sure to skip –download, or you’re in for a world of pain.

# Pin npm packages by running ./bin/importmap

pin "application", preload: true
pin "@hotwired/turbo-rails", to: "turbo.min.js", preload: true
pin "@hotwired/stimulus", to: "stimulus.min.js", preload: true
pin "@hotwired/stimulus-loading", to: "stimulus-loading.js", preload: true
pin_all_from "app/javascript/controllers", under: "controllers"

pin "chart.js", to: "https://ga.jspm.io/npm:chart.js@4.2.0/dist/chart.js"
pin "@kurkle/color", to: "https://ga.jspm.io/npm:@kurkle/color@0.3.2/dist/color.esm.js"

app/javascript/application.js

// Configure your import map in config/importmap.rb. Read more: https://github.com/rails/importmap-rails
import "@hotwired/turbo-rails"
import "controllers"

import "chart.js"

app/javascript/controllers/barchart_controller.js

import {Controller} from "@hotwired/stimulus"

import { Chart, registerables } from "chart.js";
Chart.register(...registerables);

export default class extends Controller {
    static targets = ['myChart'];

    canvasContext() {
        return this.myChartTarget.getContext('2d');
    }

    connect() {
        new Chart(this.canvasContext(), {
            type: 'bar',
            data: {
                labels: ['Red', 'Blue', 'Yellow', 'Green', 'Purple', 'Orange'],
                datasets: [{
                    label: '# of Votes',
                    data: [12, 19, 3, 5, 2, 3],
                    backgroundColor: [
                        'rgba(255, 99, 132, 0.2)',
                        'rgba(54, 162, 235, 0.2)',
                        'rgba(255, 206, 86, 0.2)',
                        'rgba(75, 192, 192, 0.2)',
                        'rgba(153, 102, 255, 0.2)',
                        'rgba(255, 159, 64, 0.2)'
                    ],
                    borderColor: [
                        'rgba(255, 99, 132, 1)',
                        'rgba(54, 162, 235, 1)',
                        'rgba(255, 206, 86, 1)',
                        'rgba(75, 192, 192, 1)',
                        'rgba(153, 102, 255, 1)',
                        'rgba(255, 159, 64, 1)'
                    ],
                    borderWidth: 1
                }]
            },
            options: {
                scales: {
                    y: {
                        beginAtZero: true
                    }
                }
            }
        });
    }
}

Content from the div in my model’s app/views/widgets/show.html.erb

<div data-controller="barchart">
  <canvas id="bar-chart" data-barchart-target="myChart" width="800" height="450"></canvas>
</div>

Don’t forget to rebuild assets (bin/rails assets:precompile).