Support public folder output

[scobenes]

So there is a public folder option in vite build that does not create any entries, but you can still reference entries off of the root. https://vitejs.dev/guide/assets#the-public-directory

In my template I still want to reference these items by using the vite_asset_url function.

<link rel="apple-touch-icon" href="{{ vite_asset_url('site-images/site/apple-touch-icon.png') }}">

So my way around this was to add a configuration of public_folder_passthrough. I don't know a better name or if this is even the correct path, but I updated the ManifestClient.get() method to make a pass through entry if it fails to find it in the manifest.json.

        if path not in self._entries:
            if self._config.public_folder_passthrough:
                return ManifestEntry(
                    file=path,
                    src=path,
                    isEntry=True,
                )
            else:
                raise DjangoViteAssetNotFoundError(
                    f"Cannot find {path} for app={self.app_name} in Vite manifest at "
                    f"{self.manifest_path}"
                )

I am not sure if there is a better way, but this works exactly as expected once I added the passthrough for the public assets

[tchappui]

I bypass this problem by adding both the dist and public folders in STATICFILES_DIRS. In my templates, I always reference the files that are in public using the static tag rather than using the vite_asset_url tag. Naturally, if Django-Vite managed the files correctly in a public directory, it would be great. This would avoid asymmetry between the files associated with the frontend.

However, this has the advantage of being a simple solution that does not involve any direct modification of Django-Vite. Maybe I'm missing, however, a border effect that is likely to pose a problem.

Kind regards, Thierry