I am trying to setup my developer env so that I can use maven to compile my LESS files for formal builds, but also have Eclipse compile the LESS for incremental builds so I dont have to keep kicking of maven tasks every time I make a LESS change. Having looked around - it seems like wro4j & the maven plugin & the m2e-wtp plugin should provide all that.
My setup is as follows: I have just installed the latest stable Eclipse (Java EE package, that includes the WTP stuff - v4.3) and I have installed the m2e plugin and the m2e-wtp plugins.
pom.xml:
<plugin>
<groupId>ro.isdc.wro4j</groupId>
<artifactId>wro4j-maven-plugin</artifactId>
<version>1.4.5</version>
<executions>
<execution>
<phase>compile</phase>
<goals>
<goal>run</goal>
</goals>
</execution>
</executions>
<configuration>
<targetGroups>roa-all</targetGroups>
<destinationFolder>${project.build.directory}/${project.build.finalName}</destinationFolder>
<cssDestinationFolder>${project.build.directory}/${project.build.finalName}/css/</cssDestinationFolder>
<jsDestinationFolder>${project.build.directory}/${project.build.finalName}/js/</jsDestinationFolder>
<wroManagerFactory>ro.isdc.wro.maven.plugin.manager.factory.ConfigurableWroManagerFactory</wroManagerFactory>
</configuration>
</plugin>
wro.properties:
preProcessors=cssImport,semicolonAppender
postProcessors=lessCss,cssMinJawr
wro.xml:
<groups xmlns="http://www.isdc.ro/wro">
<group name="roa-all">
<css>/less/*.less</css>
</group>
</groups>
Inside my /less/
folder are basically a few css files that I have renamed .less files, and one where I have actually added some LESS syntax with a few colour variables set. This mostly works, as I make changes to my LESS, the plugin detects and rebuilds my uber css file, however, rather critically, it doesn't seem to be compiling the LESS - it combines the files, and minifies, but my @variables
are all still in LESS syntax.
I also noticed that the maven plugin was up to v 1.7.0 so tried upgrading to that to see if that was the problem, but that just does nothing at all (nothing gets built at all and I have no uber css etc)
Anyone had any experience setting this up or know anything I have missed in the setup?