Description
Less was introduced in the year 2009 by Alexis Sellier. The first version was written in Ruby and later replaced with JavaScript.
Less is known as CSS pre-processor that allows customization, managing and reusing the style sheet for a website. It is a cross browser friendly and a dynamic style sheet language that extends the CSS capability.
Less is a scripting language that is compiled using CSS syntax and can be read by any web browser. It is an open source and dynamic CSS built using the functionalities. The following are some of the functions.
- Mixins
- Variables
- Comments
- Operations
- Functions
Features
- Variables maintenance can be achieved faster.
- The code is kept in a modular way which makes it easily changeable and readable.
- The code is written in a clean and organized way.
- The styles can be designed and reused throughout the code.
- The problem of code redundancy can be solved.
- Compiles faster than other CSS pre-processors.
Description
The following are a few advantages.
- Faster maintenance can be achieved using variables.
- Faster coding can be achieved and saves the time using the operations.
- Clean and well organized code can be written using Nesting.
- The CSS works across the browsers and can be easily generated.
Description
The following are a few disadvantages.
- When compared to other pre-processors like SASS, which consists of frameworks like Compass, Susy and Gravity, Less consists less framework.
- Requires more effort to reuse the modules because of tight coupling.
More Info
Either Node.js or a web browser is mandatory to run the files. In real time, a user can include less.js in their websites and compile the linked .less stylesheets, which is slow and not recommended. So, the less stylesheets are compiled and deployed in regular CSS file online.
There are a number of graphical tools used to compile the files similar to Node.js. Some of the GUI compilers are as follows.
| Graphical tools | Platform |
|---|---|
| SimpLESS | Windows, Mac OS X, Linux |
| WinLess | Windows |
| CodeKit | Mac OS X |
| Crunch | Windows, Mac OS X |
| less.js-Windows | Windows |
| less.app | Mac OS X |
| mod_less | Linux |
| clessc | Windows, Linux, Mac OS X |
| grunt-contrib-less | Node.js |
Key Points
- The functions like mixins, variables, etc. are used to achieve dynamic CSS.
- Each platform has its own GUI compiler, which is used to compile .less to .css file.