rails 7 and bootstrap 5.2.3 with importmaps javascript won’t work

I’m not sure what I am doing wrong, I checked also most other similar questions on Stack Overflow, but nothing seem to work for me.

I’m trying to get bootstrap 5.2.3 javascript to work to get a dropdown menu. I’m trying to do this with using importmaps, which looks like the easiest way (I tried also with esbuild with no success).

here’s my import maps (bootstrap comes from jsdelivr as I understand the version on yarn has troubles with popper):

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 "bootstrap", to: "https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/[email protected]/dist/js/bootstrap.esm.js"
pin "@popperjs/core", to: "https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/@popperjs/[email protected]/lib/index.js"

here’s my app/javascript/application.js:

import "@hotwired/turbo-rails"
import "controllers"
import "popper"
import "bootstrap"

here’s my relevant part from app/views/layouts/application.html.erb

  <%= stylesheet_link_tag "application", "data-turbo-track": "reload" %>
  <%= javascript_importmap_tags %>
  <% if Rails.env.development? %>
  <%= javascript_include_tag "hotwire-livereload", defer: true %>

here’s my app/assets/config/manifest.js

//= link_tree ../images
//= link_directory ../stylesheets .css
//= link_tree ../../javascript .js

here’s the relevant html header as generated by this configuration:

  <link rel="stylesheet" href="/assets/application-340caa07ce1bbb3e424a11977f38b20d7ad5bcd57480d126430e8962eb772287.css" data-turbo-track="reload">
  <script type="importmap" data-turbo-track="reload">{
  "imports": {
    "application": "/assets/application-43b3188fdbcd45d694dc59d1f446d56b6a7895097320f451e1f8b34080dfcd63.js",
    "@hotwired/turbo-rails": "/assets/turbo.min-96cbf52c71021ba210235aaeec4720012d2c1df7d2dab3770cfa49eea3bb09da.js",
    "@hotwired/stimulus": "/assets/stimulus.min-900648768bd96f3faeba359cf33c1bd01ca424ca4d2d05f36a5d8345112ae93c.js",
    "@hotwired/stimulus-loading": "/assets/stimulus-loading-1fc59770fb1654500044afd3f5f6d7d00800e5be36746d55b94a2963a7a228aa.js",
    "bootstrap": "https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/[email protected]/dist/js/bootstrap.esm.js",
    "@popperjs/core": "https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/@popperjs/[email protected]/lib/index.js",
    "controllers/application": "/assets/controllers/application-368d98631bccbf2349e0d4f8269afb3fe9625118341966de054759d96ea86c7e.js",
    "controllers/current_link_controller": "/assets/controllers/current_link_controller-370b5b9f12a48b3c3c34f79e6d2782d26737770d0459437000dd110a50aead36.js",
    "controllers": "/assets/controllers/index-2db729dddcc5b979110e98de4b6720f83f91a123172e87281d5a58410fc43806.js"
  }
}</script>
<link rel="modulepreload" href="/assets/application-43b3188fdbcd45d694dc59d1f446d56b6a7895097320f451e1f8b34080dfcd63.js">
<link rel="modulepreload" href="/assets/turbo.min-96cbf52c71021ba210235aaeec4720012d2c1df7d2dab3770cfa49eea3bb09da.js">
<link rel="modulepreload" href="/assets/stimulus.min-900648768bd96f3faeba359cf33c1bd01ca424ca4d2d05f36a5d8345112ae93c.js">
<link rel="modulepreload" href="/assets/stimulus-loading-1fc59770fb1654500044afd3f5f6d7d00800e5be36746d55b94a2963a7a228aa.js">
<script src="/assets/es-module-shims.min-606ae9c3279013fe751cee30f719a592f759e705edb66496812f3d9dbce3d850.js" async="async" data-turbo-track="reload"></script>
<script type="module">import "application"</script>
  <script src="/assets/hotwire-livereload-69f109e9f29dd4f334a14c739a16f66d96595dcede55037f287ea8712288c0ae.js" defer="defer"></script>

my gemfile contains:

# Use Sass to process CSS
gem 'bootstrap', '~> 5.2.3'
gem 'sassc-rails', '2.1.2'

I also don’t understand why bootstrap and popper seem to be bundled in the application.css, rather than being listed in the includes.