.. _customizing-style-css-file-in-askbot:

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Customizing style.css file in Askbot
====================================

File `style.css` is produced by the `lesscss compiler <http://lesscss.org>`_ - ``lessc``.
Secondly, `style.css` is used in production mode - with an entry
`ASKBOT_CSS_DEVEL = True` in the `settings.py` file.
When `ASKBOT_CSS_DEVEL` setting is absent or set to ``False``,
the source `style.less` will be loaded and compiled by the browser.
A side-effect of that is a possible momentary flash of unstyled content
and some delay in the page load.

`ASKBOT_CSS_DEVEL = True` is a convenient setting for the designer.

Please find documentation about the lesscss format elsewhere.

.. note::
    Besides the "official" lesscss compiler, there are other 
    tools that convert .less files into .css: for example a 
    `less compiler from codekit (mac) <http://incident57.com/less/>`_
    and a `portable SimpLESS compiler <http://wearekiss.com/simpless>`_.

Compiling lesscss files
=======================

The following command will compile the lesscss source file,
an option -x will produce compressed css file:

    lessc file.lesscss -x > file.css

Installing lesscss
==================

Make sure you have recent version of `node.js <http://nodejs.org>`_ - latest version preferred.
More recent versions of node come with the tool called `npm <http://npmjs.org>`_,
for earlier versions ``npm`` will need to be installed manually.

To install lesscss, type:

    sudo npm install less