atul-bhouraskar / django-less

Django template tags to generate CSS using LESS

Django LESS

Django LESS provides template tags to compile LESS into CSS from templates. It works with both inline code and extenal files.

Installation

1. Add "less" to INSTALLED_APPS setting.
2. Make sure that you have lessc executable installed. See LESS official site for details.
3. Optionally, you can specify the full path to lessc executable with LESS_EXECUTABLE setting. By default it's set to lessc.

Example Usage

Inline

{% load less %}

<style>
  {% inlineless %}
    #header {
      h1 {
        font-size: 26px;
        font-weight: bold;
      }
      p { font-size: 12px;
        a { text-decoration: none;
          &:hover { border-width: 1px }
        }
      }
    }
  {% endless %}
</style>

renders to

<style>
  #header h1 {
    font-size: 26px;
    font-weight: bold;
  }
  #header p {
    font-size: 12px;
  }
  #header p a {
    text-decoration: none;
  }
  #header p a:hover {
    border-width: 1px;
  }
</style>

External file

{% load less %}

<link rel="stylesheet" href="{{ STATIC_URL}}{% less "path/to/styles.less" %}" />

renders to

<link rel="stylesheet" href="/media/LESS_CACHE/path/to/styles-91ce1f66f583.css" />

Note that by default compiled files are saved into LESS_CACHE folder under your STATIC_ROOT (or MEDIA_ROOT if you have no STATIC_ROOT in your settings). You can change this folder name with LESS_OUTPUT_DIR setting.

Note that all relative URLs in your stylesheet are converted to absolute URLs using your STATIC_URL setting.

Settings

LESS_EXECUTABLE

Path to LESS compiler executable. Default: "lessc".

LESS_OUTPUT_DIR

Output directory for compiled external stylesheets. It's relative to STATIC_ROOT. Default: "LESS_CACHE".

LESS_USE_CACHE

Whether to use cache for inline styles. Default: True.

LESS_CACHE_TIMEOUT

Cache timeout for inline styles (in seconds). Default: 30 days.

LESS_MTIME_DELAY

Cache timeout for reading the modification time of external stylesheets (in seconds). Default: 10 seconds.