WP-LESS: Enhance Your WordPress Themes with LESS CSS

About WP-LESS

LESS is a templating language that enhances CSS development and makes maintenance easier. It provides features such as variables, mixins, nested rules, accessors, and functions. The plugin handles everything automatically, from cache management to user delivery, and has minimal requirements of PHP 5.3 and WordPress 3.2.

Screenshots

Frequently asked questions

What is LESS?

LESS is a templating language based on top of CSS. It provides numerous enhancements to speed up development and make its maintenance easier.

What are the features of LESS?

The features of LESS include variables, mixins (inheritance of rules), nested rules (write less, do more), accessors (inherit a value from a specific rule), and functions (logic operations for dynamic results).

Where can I find the documentation for the plugin?

The documentation for the plugin is available on the Github project documentation: https://github.com/oncletom/wp-less/tree/master/doc

What are the requirements for using the plugin?

The sole requirement is to use WordPress API and LESS convention: the .less extension. Minimal requirements are PHP 5.3 and WordPress 3.2. The plugin also relies on Less.php and plugin-toolkit.

Is it safe to drop the usage of this plugin?

Yes, it is safe to drop the usage of this plugin. You will just need to convert back your stylesheets to CSS.

Changelog

Version 1.9.0

feature: default less compiler is now wikimedia/less.php (#117)
feature: output is compressed by default

Version 1.8.0

feature: default less compiler is now oyejorge/less.php (#90

Version 1.7.6

info: updated vendored lessphp libraries versions (oyejorge/[email protected])

Version 1.7.5

feature: now works properly in the admin side (#68)

Version 1.7.4

feature: favour composer autoload to manual PHP require (#64)

Version 1.7.3

bug: fixed the LESS library loading (#63)
doc: documented the new LESS library swapping

Version 1.7.0

feature: ability to provide your own flavour of lessphp or less.php (#53)
bug: fixed stylesheet directory computation (#61)
bug: unlink exception during utpdated files cleanup (#49)
style: code cleanup (#56, #55)

Version 1.6.0

Read the UPGRADE NOTICE carefully as this release contains BC change. Hence the version bump to 1.6.0.

lessphp: updated to v0.4.0

Version 1.5.4

bug: fixed stylesheet URL computation (#38)
bug: fixed cache-hit miss after stylesheet garbage collection (#40)
added a CONTRIBUTORS file

Version 1.5.3

lessphp: updated to v0.3.9

Version 1.5.2

bug: fixed garbage collector bug (#28)
bug: fixed cachebusting URI generation in deep mode (#29)
bug: fixed access to Plugin instance, matching the documentation (#39)

Version 1.5.1

feature(beta): less stylesheets can be enqueued in wp-admin
feature: added WPLessConfiguration::getTtl method to let you configure the delay of old-files cleanup
bug: fixed automatic replacements with absolute and data uri (#19)
bug: fixed garbage collector; was pruning active stylesheets even if too old (buggy with active cache) (#20)

Version 1.5

Mostly issues related to lessphp 0.3.8 features.

/! Leveraged PHP Minimum Version to 5.2.4 /! (WordPress already asks you the same)
dev documentation available online
bug: stylesheets compilation is now processed on wp_enqueue_scripts (prop of @RixTox)
feature: providing stylesheet and template directory uri variables (@stylesheet_directory_uri & @template_directory_uri) following WordPress convention
feature: Pruning old compiled files #15
feature: Smarter LESS compilation (following @import file updates) #13
feature: Systematic LESS rebuild through configuration #14
improvement: Match lessphp variable API #12

Version 1.4.3

bug: fixed HTTPS/Networked Blog URL replacement (#8, #9)
bug: fixed the property of non-object in Plugin.class.php bug
lessphp: updated to 0.3.8 (compatible with lessjs 1.3)

Version 1.4.2

feature: if WP_DEBUG is set to true, compilation is done on every page
feature: rebuild now takes care of LESS PHP variable
feature: added support of custom LESS functions
lessphp: updated to version 0.3.1

Version 1.4.1

bug: CSS url() are now properly resolved relative to the theme URL

Version 1.4

action: wp-less_compiler_parse_pre now takes 3 arguments: class instance, text and variable arguments
action: wp-less_stylesheet_save_pre now takes 2 arguments: class instance and variable arguments
helper: added less_add_variable to ease manipulations from theme, if needed (the file needs to be included manually)
stylesheet: getBuffer() and setBuffer will be removed in 1.5 version
lessphp: removed the custom patch for buffer manipulation, due to built-in variable management
lessphp: updated to version 0.3.0

Version 1.3.1

renamed wp-less_compiler_parse action to wp-less_compiler_parse_pre to avoid name conflicts
renamed wp-less_compiler_construct action to wp-less_compiler_construct_pre to avoid name conflicts
lessphp: patched the lib to let manipulating the buffer, and replace strings (do it at your own risks)

Version 1.3

moved stylesheet processing from wp_print_styles to wp action
added new compiler actions and filters (same name each): wp-less_compiler_construct and wp-less_compiler_parse
added WPLessCompiler::getBuffer() and WPLessCompiler::setBuffer() method, to enables hooking on LESS content, before being compiled into CSS
removed WPLessStyleseet::getTargetContent method
upgraded plugin-toolkit
usage of $WPLessPlugin->dispatch instead of $WPLessPlugin->registerHooks to match the new plugin-toolkit signature
no more configuration collision if usage of multiple plugins using plugin-toolkit
lessphp: updated to eac64a9d5a3bc3186a11c7130968388819f4c403 commit

Version 1.2.1

fixed the case where no stylesheet is queued (no warning anymore)

Version 1.2

added 2 new filters working on freshly transformed CSS
added a HTML helper to LESSify directly from templates, without queuying with wp_enqueue_stylesheet (can’t really recommend this usage)
added timestamp calculation so as you can be HTTP cache-control compliant
documented plugin hooks and filters
hooked a filter to update relative paths to deal uri and cached file location
lessphp: updated to version 0.2.0

Version 1.1

added bootstrap-for-theme.php to let themers bundle the plugin in their own themes
added WPLessPlugin::registerHooks methods to ease hooks activation
theme bootstrap will only load if the plugin is not alread activated
WPLessPlugin::processStylesheets() and WPLessPlugin::processStylesheet() now accepts an additional parameter to force the rebuild
lessphp: updated to version 0.1.6
plugin-toolkit: updated to version 1.1

Version 1.0

implemented API to let you control the plugin the way you want
just in time compilation with static file caching
lessphp: bundled to version 0.1.6
plugin-toolkit: bundled experimental plugin development

WP-LESS