lessphp is falling off, preparing for alternatives - how?

[lkraav]

thom4parisot/wp-less#53 has an overview of the situation. leafo/lessphp seems to be dying.

[meitzner-hannes]

It is. You can specify less.php as drop-in.

By the way, it seams to me that there is an bug regarding this.
In the "lib/Compiler.class.php" File will be checked if the the global "WP_LESS_COMPILER" is set.
But as far as I can see this Global never gets set, not even a default.
Also the same file second line "$compiler = 'lessphp';" never get used, is it?

Found that today as lessphp fails to compile my less files using the Semantic Grid System.
Hopefully less.php does a better job :)
But it seams so.

Greetings!

[lkraav]

README doesn't state how to switch between compiler implementations. Maybe you want to open a pull request with an added instruction how you do it?

[roborourke]

I think the way the uses of preprocessors is going it'd be be better to put
the time into making an easy install gulp.js implementation that can be
applied to a WP implementation.

[lkraav]

Geez, I'm having a hard time staying up to date with all these *js new technologies :) Going to google gulp js now..

EDIT mmmkay. I for one have no idea how to set that up here.

[lkraav]

https://github.com/bassjobsen/wp-lesscss

[jeremyhaile]

@lkraav is there a way to use wp-lesscss as an alternative compiler? I can't find any instructions. Also - is there any way to use the native less compiler rather than a PHP version? I'd be totally happy just having a plugin that ran "lessc" on the server to compile LESS files when they update.

[jeremyhaile]

For example, I really want to use LESS' @import (inline) "my.css" but it isn't supported by lessphp.

[lkraav]

Haven't had any time to upgrade myself yet either, still running on stock for now, since I don't actually require anything better right at this moment.

[lkraav]

It looks like it is as easy as changing the require section in composer.json

"oyejorge/less.php": "~1.5"

Then "composer update" will drop-in replace leafo with less.php

[lkraav]

I'm noticing I have to use quoted url() notation with the new parser

url("@{themeurl}/img/something.jpg")

or @{themeurl} will not get parsed. Otherwise things seem nice. I'm able to nicely inline @import a filename passed via "less_vars" filter, so I'd say #23 can be solved by switching the parser.

[roborourke]

@lkraav or @scottsweb would you be able to get a PR ready on this repo for this? Don't have much time at the mo!

[vburlak]

@scottsweb thx a lot for reference.

Had an errors with compilation latest bootstrap 3.3.4 via lessphp.
Then, tested your fork with less.php compiler — and all compiled well.

[vburlak]

Important: when installing wp-less via Composer — it installs less.php as a dependency package.
Theme Check plugin found a /test directory in less.php package with a lot of "unwanted" stuff in it..

I'm sure, that /test directory must be removed from composer installation. Read more about in my pull request note: oyejorge/less.php/pull/215

[lkraav]

@vburlak you're right. I've noticed this myself as well.

[vburlak]

oh, I was not careful in the morning :(

Theme Check reportes more warnings in less.php/lib/less/parser.php

WARNING: Found ini_set in the file /lib/Less/Parser.php. Themes should not change server PHP settings.

• Line 173: @ini_set('precision',16);
• Line 211: @ini_set('precision',$precision);
• Line 471: @ini_set('mbstring.internal_encoding', 'ascii');
• Line 478: @ini_set('mbstring.internal_encoding', $mb_internal_encoding);

Any suggestions, how it can be replaces is less.php package?

[vburlak]

Found old issue in less.php repo about @ini_set('precision',16); strings - oyejorge/less.php/issues/21

Tried just comment it in my local installation of less.php — at first glance, still compiles fine. Need more testing..

[vburlak]

In _parse function from /lib/Less/Parser.php found one more issue: it isn't override LESS variables previously defined in .less files.
Tried to pass variables via less_vars filter and add_less_var() function — both methods igrnored and less.php compiles variables from .less files.

That have reference in less.php issues oyejorge/less.php/issues/162 . Can't understand how it can be fixed in wp-less.

Conclusion for _parse function:

• need to understand what to do with @ini_set('mbstring.internal_encoding', 'ascii'); and @ini_set('mbstring.internal_encoding', $mb_internal_encoding); (Theme Check Warnings)
• need to implement fix for overriding LESS variables set in files

[scottsweb]

Unfortunately a pull request from my repo looks like it would be a tricky(ish) merge @sanchothefat as my fork is based on @tarendai's fork (which introduced logging and https support and quite a few other changes).

It's a very small change to composer.json to switch the compiler: scottsweb@622541a and I have been running it for some time without any issues.

[tomjn]

I'd recommend merging my fork into yours if possible, if only because it makes debugging issues 1 million times easier, and it provides a place to put a rebuild button and somewhere to make use of the WP File system apis from