Less CSS Resources

  • Tags : resources, resource-mapper
  • Latest : 1.3.3
  • Last Updated: 17 March 2013
  • Grails version : 1.3.5 > *
7 votes

4% of Grails users

Dependency : 
compile ":lesscss-resources:1.3.3"

Documentation Source Issues

Summary

This plugin supports server-side compilation of .less CSS files to their .css counterparts.

Installation

grails install-plugin lesscss-resources

Description

Less CSS Resource plugin

This plugin is designed to optimise the use of .less css files. The Processing will compile specified .less files into their .css counterparts, and place the css into the processing chain to be available to the other resource plugin features. The plugin uses the Java Less Compiler to compile the .less files using Mozilla Rhino. The plugin uses the Resources Plugin and plays nicely with both the zipped and cached resources plugins.

LESS extends CSS with dynamic behavior such as variables, mixins, operations and functions. Read more

This plugin is seen as a replacement for the lesscss plugin . It utilizes the resources plugin which will provide a much more stable and future-proof platform. It is highly recommended that you use this version.

Installation

grails install-plugin lesscss-resources

Usage

An Example of using both .less and .css files together in a bundle 
'style' {
        resource url:'less/test.less',attrs:[rel: "stylesheet/less", type:'css'], bundle:'bundle_style'
        resource url:'css/normal.css'
        resource url:'css/normal2.css'
    }

Import

LESS supports importing of other less/css files. This is supported in lesscss-resources. 
@import 'imported_style.less';
Note that the files to be imported are not part of the resources bundle, so any changes will not trigger a rebuild of the resource.

Options

You can use the LessCSS engine to compress the output by adding this to your Config.groovy: 
grails.resources.mappers.lesscss.compress = true
By default the output is not compressed. Note: This compression offered by LESS is not as comprehensive as you might expect.

Required Settings for LESS

  • url: The location of the .less file
  • attrs[rel]: should be set to stylesheet/less for compatibility reasons
  • attrs[type]: must be set to css for resources to process
  • bundle: Must be set as will not default correctly. To add to default bundle use 'bundle_<module name>"
See the Resources plugin for more details on available configurations

Changelog

1.3.3 Updated version of less-compiler to 1.3.3 Supports latest Twitter Bootstrap and Single and Double quotes for import statements

1.3.1 Updated version of less-compiler to 1.3.1 Memory optimisations now the less-compiler can be multi-threaded Added ability to use the compression option in the less-compiler

1.3.0 - Breaking Change - Asual lesscss compiler has been replaced with lesscss-java

Issues

  • Import statements must use double quotes
  • For the Bundle to work you must have a .css file at the end of the bundle, even if it is just a blank file.
  • Must specify the default bundle manually as this is calculated based on file extension by default.
  • When debug is switched on there is currently no way to fall back to the standard LESS javascript support. The less files will be rendered unprocessed