Differences

This shows you the differences between two versions of the page.

--- development:architecture:less [2015/12/14 18:20] – ↷ Page moved and renamed from using_less to development:architecture:less demiankatz
+++ development:architecture:less [2017/08/02 16:07] – [Backup PHP Command Line Compiler] demiankatz
@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
-====== Using LESS ======
+====== LESS / SASS ======
+[[http://lesscss.org/features/|Less]] and [[http://sass-lang.com/|Sass]] are CSS "pre-processors": they include higher level functionality like variables, functions, and nesting on top of CSS and can then be compiled to CSS.
+===== LESS vs. SASS =====
+As of this writing, all VuFind style development is done using LESS; SASS files are programmatically derived from the LESS files using the lessToSass [[development:grunt|grunt]] task. While LESS and SASS files should be functionally equivalent, the LESS files are more thoroughly tested and we apologize for any problems with SASS. Please feel free to contribute back to the project if you wish to improve our support of SASS.
+===== Command Line Compilation =====
+Both Less and Sass use [[development:grunt|grunt]] for compilation. They both compile to css/compiled.css.
+===== Active Compilation =====
+Active compilation can be used to automatically compile from Less to CSS when a page loads. This is very useful for development.
-VuFind's bootstrap3 and bootprint3 themes use LESS to compile CSS styles. LESS offers some advantages over pure CSS, since it offers some advanced time-saving features. However, because it has to be compiled to be used, it also adds some extra steps for the developer. This page offers some useful background information and notes on VuFind's use of LESS.
-===== Setup =====
 Write permission needs to be given to a new folder for LESS to work: [theme]/css/less/
@@ Line 47: / Line 58: @@
 Make sure you have a compiled.less in your theme, as the LESS compiler was not keen on pulling from parent themes. Also, doing so will prevent mulitple Bootstrap instances from being compiled into your final CSS.
-===== LESS Command Line Compiler =====
+===== Backup PHP Command Line Compiler =====
   php util/cssBuilder.php
 This will use the Less Parser to compile your LESS into CSS files in the regular CSS folder. These can then be used as regular CSS files, but more importantly, these will be used as fall-back in case of a LESS parser error. So compile regularly!
+:!: Note that the "grunt less" task is the preferred means of compiling LESS files for VuFind, and the older PHP compiler may produce inconsistent results in some situations.
 LESS does not have to be set to active for this to work, as long as the files you want to compile are listed under "less" in theme.config.php.