when to put images to app/asssets and when to /public/images in rails 3.1?

Question

I still don't quite get it, where to put images in rails 3.1, in these situation:

1. Images are processed (f.e. by paperclip or by dragonfly ) and stored in folder (not with external service like s3, ..f.e. in develompent)
2. when I have just images, that I'll use in stylesheet (f.e. backrounds)
3. Icons (AppStore, Facebook ...)

thanx

Answer 1

Stylesheet images should be placed in app/assets, while files uploaded by paperclip in public/system. In case of assets , fingerprints will be created for every file, so they can be properly cached. If cached file changes, fingerprint changes too and in such way cache is invalidated.

UPDATE: To reference files in app/assets (e.g. specifying image url in css) you`ll need to use special asset pipeline ERB or SCSS helpers (like image-path and image-url for SCSS and asset_path for ERB).