Feature Request: Copy assets outside of src folder (e.g. node_modules)

[serhiisol]

So this is a feature request for ability to copy assets from different folders of the project, e.g. node_modules etc. Currently it doesn't seem to be supported even if you'll specify this:

angular-cli.json

    "assets": [
      "assets",
      "../logo.png",
      "../node_modules/third-party/cool.svg"
    ],

It's actually common use case, when you need to copy assets from third-party modules from node_modules

Below you can see additional information about cli and steps to reproduce:

OS?

Windows 7, 8 or 10. Linux (which distribution). Mac OSX (Yosemite? El Capitan?)
macOS Sierra 10.12.1

Versions.

Please run ng --version. If there's nothing outputted, please run in a Terminal: node --version and paste the result here:

angular-cli: 1.0.0-beta.21
node: 7.2.1
os: darwin x64

Repro steps.

Was this an app that wasn't created using the CLI? What change did you do on your code? etc.
To reproduce this issue just try to copy file one level up of src folder or explicitly from node_modules

Stack trace

1. If you'll specify asset as

   "assets": [
      "assets",
      "../node_modules/bootstrap-theme/svg/sprite-symbol.svg"
    ]

you won't see any stack trace, all good, but file won't be copied

1. If you'll specify asset as

   "assets": [
      "assets",
      "node_modules/bootstrap-theme/svg/sprite-symbol.svg"
    ]

ENOENT: no such file or directory, stat '/Users/serhiisol/Development/test-app/src/node_modules/bootstrap-theme/svg/sprite-symbol.svg'
Error: ENOENT: no such file or directory, stat  #'/Users/serhiisol/Development/test-app/src/node_modules/bootstrap-theme/svg/sprite-symbol.svg'
    at Object.fs.statSync (fs.js:906:18)

Mention any other details that might be useful.

What if you want to include assets from node_modules, which seems like a fairly common use case

[hikalkan]

We also need this to copy a file from node_modules to output folder.

[manuelfink]

Same situation here. It would be awesome if angular-cli could merge several sources into joined the public foulders eg.:

"assets":[
"source1/css",
"source1/js",
"source2/css",
"source2/js"
]

output is merged in public folders /css and /js.

It also would be really handy do specify different targets to avoid naming conflicts eg.

assets: [
  { "source":"../node_modules/awsomse/style.css", "to":"css/awesome.css"},
  { "source":"../node_modules/other/style.css", "to":"css/other.css"}
]

[filipesilva]

There was something similar to @manuelfink's suggestion added for scripts/styles in #3402.

Something similar could be added for assets.

[serhiisol]

@filipesilva is it available in beta.24 ? if so I can test

[filipesilva]

@serhiisol it doesn't exist for assets, just for scripts/styles.

[serhiisol]

@filipesilva right, ok, I can try to help with it

[filipesilva]

@serhiisol I'd prefer to take this one myself since it requires a few changes throughout parts of the app that I already had to do for other PRs. I might end up consolidating that mechanism.

[derekcdaley]

What's the latest on this? This would be an amazing feature.