Common Usage

Common Usage

Once installed, the plugin is ready to work. All you have to do is to define which LESS files you want to automatically compile into static CSS.

The advantage over the less.js embed in the browser is a pure matter of performance and caching.

The default values of wp-less already take care about server overhead, browser cache-hit issues and settings change!

Registering a LESS stylesheet

Just like you would add a CSS stylesheet in Wordpress using Wordpress' built-in function wp_enqueue_style you can now also add your LESS stylesheets using this function. This function can only be called upon in your theme's functions.php. Register your LESS stylesheets as following:

add_action('init', 'theme_enqueue_styles');

function theme_enqueue_styles() {
	wp_enqueue_style('theme-main', get_stylesheet_directory_uri().'/stylesheets/theme-main.less');
	wp_enqueue_style('theme-extra', get_stylesheet_directory_uri().'/stylesheets/theme-extra.less');
}

This will compile the specified files into CSS files which will be put in a separate folder belonging to the plugin. HTML code linking to them is then automatically added to your main page by adding <link> tags when Wordpress calls wp_head().

Note that you can still use wp_enqueue_style for CSS files as well, compilation will just be skipped then.

Configuration Constants

Default configuration may not suit your needs so a few constants are available.

You should alter them in your regular wp-config.php file, under the root of your WordPress install.

Compilation Strategy

// wp-config.php

define('WP_LESS_COMPILATION', '<value:string>');

<value:string> can be replaced by the following values:

• deep (default): LESS stylesheets will be recompiled if the file or imported files have been modified;
• always: LESS stylesheets will be recompiled on every page, even if they have not been altered;
• legacy: LESS stylesheets will be recompiled only if the registered stylesheet has been modified, regardless of imported files (it was the default behavior prior to wp-less 1.5).

NOTICE: The always strategy compiles stylesheets on every page, every time. It can cause serious server overhead with high volumes of traffic and LESS code.

Always Recompile

Sometimes, you want to always recompile, whatever the reasons are. This is not a recommended production setting.

You should also have in mind these 2 things:

1. this value is equivalent to define(‘WP_LESS_COMPILATION’, ‘always’);;
2. this value overrides the setting defined by WP_LESS_COMPILATION .

// wp-config.php

define('WP_LESS_ALWAYS_RECOMPILE', <value:bool>);

<value:bool> can be replaced by the following values:

• true: all LESS stylesheets will be recompiled on each visited page on your blog;
• false(default): stylesheets are not recompiled on each visited page.

WP_DEBUG

If WP_DEBUG is set to true, LESS stylesheets will be recompiled on each visited page of your blog.

It is the same behavior as WP_LESS_ALWAYS_RECOMPILE except you also gets all WordPress debug stuff with it.

Available variables

Since version 1.5, wp-less setup default variables useable in every LESS stylesheet (even imported ones):

@stylesheet_directory_uri

Since 1.5

Equals to the value returned by get_stylesheet_directory_uri().

It is particularly useful if you want to link to assets located in your stylesheet theme directory.

@template_directory_uri

Since 1.5

Equals to the value returned by get_template_directory_uri().

It is particularly useful if you want to link to assets located in your template theme directory.