django + less, updated

In a previous post, I described how I configured the hyperkitty django project to use LESS. Briefly, my steps were:
– install django-compressor, django-less, nodejs, npm, and lessc
– update settings.py with configuration settings for django-compressor and django-less
– restart webserver

However, it turns out some of those steps are a bit outdated. First, PyPI says that django-less is not maintained and suggests using django-static-precompiler instead. Second, while LESS suggests that the easiest way to install the compiler is via npm, it is just as easy to install the LESS compiler via nodejs-less. So here are my updated steps for configuring a django project to use LESS:

pip install django-compressor
pip install django-static-precompiler
sudo yum install nodejs-less # installs lessc</code>

I also realized that my settings.py needed to be updated too. I was previously using DEBUG=TRUE and, under that case, everything worked fine. But when I switched over to DEBUG=FALSE, I noticed a few extra settings needed to be added. So, for the sake of completeness, here are all the changes I made to settings for the hyperkitty project.

• Add settings to INSTALLED_APPS:

  INSTALLED_APPS = (
  # other apps..
  'compressor',
  'static-precompiler',
  )
  

• Add settings for django-static-precompiler (more details here):

  STATICFILES_FINDERS = ( 'django.contrib.staticfiles.finders.FileSystemFinder', 'django.contrib.staticfiles.finders.AppDirectoriesFinder', # other finders.. 'static_precompiler.finders.StaticPrecompilerFinder', ) STATIC_PRECOMPILER_COMPILERS = ( 'static_precompiler.compilers.LESS', )

• Add these settings for django-compressor settings (more details here and here):

  STATICFILES_FINDERS = ( 'django.contrib.staticfiles.finders.FileSystemFinder', 'django.contrib.staticfiles.finders.AppDirectoriesFinder', # other finders.. 'compressor.finders.CompressorFinder', ) COMPRESS_PRECOMPILERS = ( ('text/less', 'lessc {infile} {outfile}'), ) INTERNAL_IPS = ('127.0.0.1',) # enables local compiling COMPRESS_ENABLED = True # defaults to opposite of DEBUG COMPRESS_OFFLINE = True # allow pre-compression of files