visualstudio project suggestion - Sitefinity - Front- & Back-End Development

All Replies

Posted by Community Admin on 07-Mar-2012 00:00

As by Hristo's request, see attached images... :D

Jochem.

Posted by Community Admin on 07-Mar-2012 00:00

I'm gonna try too

Posted by Community Admin on 13-Mar-2012 00:00

It would be cool if the Thunder project would combine and minimize the CSS before uploading. I would use LESS if it had it too.

I would have uploaded a picture, but clearly Jochem has artistic abilities much better than my own. ;-)

Posted by Community Admin on 13-Mar-2012 00:00

@Dan

Unless you're obsessed with manually controlling every bit and piece, I definitely recommend Chirpy (until further progress on JustCode and Thunder's been made). No more NuGet packages of dotLess or YUI compressor, no more pre/post build tasks - just edit your .less / .css file, hit save and you're done....

It's a VisualStudio extension which works with 2008/2010 and is totally unobtrusive. By just naming your file filename.yui.less or filename.msajax.less it'll automatically create a regular css (for development) and a minified css for you. The YUI and MSASJAX stand for which compressor you prefer. It also works for Javascript, Closure, Cofeescript and regular .css

It comes with some basic syntax highlighting for .less files (so no more need for Mindscape Web Workbench - with their new annoying please upgrade pop-ups wohoo!)

---
In case of Sitefinity and Thunder, I'm writing .less in my Thunder project and manually included the .min.css into the project so it gets published/uploaded. For Javascript files (regular VisualStudio project) I have the regular Javascript files set to 'not publish' and the .min.js files to 'publish'.

So far the only downside of Chirpy is the inability to bundle, but that's going to be part of .NET 4.5 anyway...

Jochem

Posted by Community Admin on 15-Mar-2012 00:00

Why not using the Microsoft.Web.Optimization? I know, it will be part of .NET 4.5, but is available through NuGet and works great.

-Daniel

Posted by Community Admin on 15-Mar-2012 00:00

IIIInteresting idea Daniel! :)

You're using it w/out issues?

For others: LINK

Posted by Community Admin on 15-Mar-2012 00:00

@Steve: yes, almost on all my websites. I'm not doing LESS, but the minification and bundling works without problems. I'm not working with SF Themes, so not checked that approach.

Posted by Community Admin on 16-Mar-2012 00:00

@Daniel,

The first time you mentioned it (the previous release of the NuGet package) it had a problem with vendor prefixes. I tried to find whether this was solved now with the new release, but couldn't find any information.

Do you know if the current version no longer has problems with prefixes?

Jochem.

Posted by Community Admin on 12-Apr-2012 00:00

Jochem,

What did you have to do to enable intellisense for the .less file? I am able to get the .css and .min.css files to generate just fine, but the .less file functions as a normal text file in that I do not get any type of intellisense or code formating.

Posted by Community Admin on 12-Apr-2012 00:00

@Stacy
You will love it :)

Posted by Community Admin on 13-Apr-2012 00:00

@Stacey,

Steve's Mindscape WebWorkbench is indeed great (if you pay $39). The free version also does syntax highlighting but its got annoying pop-ups and things like you can't click the standard 'comment out' button from VisualStudio but have to manually type /* */ to comment out some .less/.css.

If you grab the latest source code of Zippy/Chirpy and build it, you'll end up with a newer version than the current 'release version' in VisualStudio Gallery. You'll need version 2.05 at the minimum for syntax highlighting support. (Or grab the .zip file I made from the compiled source)

I totally agree with Steve that if you buy the full version of Web Workbench, you will love it - but I'm waiting for JustCode and the next version of VisualStudio to suppport .LESS syntax high-lighting. So even though it may be just $39 its something that next Q hopefully won't be needed no more...

Jochem.

Posted by Community Admin on 13-Apr-2012 00:00

@Jochem

Thanks for the files. I am still not getting syntax highlighting and the option is selected and VS was restarted. I may uninstall and try again as I had the older version still installed when I did this.

@Steve

I have been looking at Mindscape as an option, but I am not willing to pay for something right now when there is a good chance VS2011 or future plugins will meet this need for me. (one can hope!) I still may try the free edition.

Either way I really want to start working with LESS to get a feel for it.

p.s. I am not saying $39 is not worth the product, but until I want to learn and use LESS before I start buying feature sets to determine if I like it.

This thread is closed