LESS Client for Windows

Question

I am looking for a client that supports LESS (http://lesscss.org/ it basically helps you with your CSS) It is very hard to find something on google, as css with the word less always referes to "less counter-strike:source" .... I checked manually if there is a plugin available for notepad++ may editor of choice when it comes to simple CSS or HTML, however, there was not plugin available.

Maybe there is somebody who actually found something usefull to Support LESS on a WINDOWS PC.

Sadly the website doesnt say anything about that neither. I installed Ruby and Ruby Gems but, I do not want to do things over the command line ... why should I? There are clients and plugins for editors on MacOSX...

I hope somebody of you could help me out because I really find just rubbish over google..

Thank you very much in advance!

Answer 1

Have you tried using it client-side? All the compiling happens with javascript so you don't need a plugin or client at all. Using LESS client-side is great for local development or production if you're ok with depending on javascript.

If you're not comfortable with depending on javascript in a production environment you could:

• set up a node.js server to handle the compiling
• compile into CSS via the command line or similar only before pushing to production

Both these options allow you to develop locally without the need for any extra software.

Answer 2

You should check out WinLess. WinLess is a compiler (with GUI) for LESS. WinLess can watch your LESS files, and automatically compile them when they have changed. If you are using Visual Studio for your projects you should also check out the BuildEventScript of winless.org.

If you also want syntax highlighting in notepad++ you should install the User Defined Language for LESS.js from this page.

Answer 3

Here are two nice out of the box LESS CSS solutions for Windows:

• http://wearekiss.com/simpless

• http://winless.org/

Answer 4

There is a .Net port of LESS - http://www.dotlesscss.org/ . Download the latest release and you'll see there is a windows exe (dotless.Compiler.exe) for compiling LESS css files.

Answer 5

There's a Github project for a LESS Textmate bundle.

Textmate itself is Mac-only, but many other Windows text editors support its bundle format, like e and Sublime Text. There are several others; those are just the ones I've personally used.