if you're familiar with Liferay you'll know that when you make an itsy-bitsy change to a css file you shall rebuild the theme and redeploy it.
As for redeploying I made a symlink (mind you I'm on Windows: for the curious creating a symlink on Vista is just a matter of issuing mklink /d dir1 dir2).
But what about rebuilding the stuff with maven? I'd rather skip that step. Basically what it does is combyining and packing all CSS in one everything_packed.css. Is there a sort of config variable to tell liferay just to include the raw files and skip redeployment alltogether?
Thanks
Guys I found the solution myself.
You should have a file called portal-ext.properties file in
$TOMCAT_DIR/webapps/ROOT/WEB-INFO/classes
Or more specifically for my win setup in
C:\liferay\webapps\ROOT\WEB-INF\classes
The file would hold the value
theme.css.fast.load=false
This will prevent liferay to be looking for the everything_packed.css and so you're free to modify your stuff without rebuilding and CTRL-R to refresh the page and see the changes.
Just for completeness, as this question is somewhat old and the problem already solved: There's a lot more along these lines, e.g. javascript, layouts etc. that can be used uncached. This is documented in either the Liferay Wiki (as Developler Mode) or the Development Guide, available from the documentation site (though currently it's not there for the last version - if it's still not there when you're reading it, look for it (PDF) in the older versions.
It's advisable to use these settings only in development, not in production, as putting all css and javascript in as few files as possible results in a huge performance impact.
to include all those settings, just can also just add the following line into your portal-ext.properties file:
include-and-override=portal-developer.properties
this will include all the developer specific settings, and when you want to remove them, you can just comment out this line.
you can edit the css files of your theme from Webapps{your theme}\css
And can see the changes directly.
You can edit almost every file which doesn't require compilation.like .jsp files but not .java files
Related
I am finding old CSS code on my browser instead it has the new code in server files. I can see the minified CSS code on browser when application gets loaded up.
My team is using Liferay framework which seems to minify the CSS files. I am noob in liferay.
I found portal-ext.properties under liferay-portal-6.1.10-ee-ga1/tomcat-7.0.25/webapps/ROOT/WEB-INF/classes/ but didn't found any parameter for minifying the CSS files?
You shouldn't just update any CSS code you find deployed on the server. Instead, update your theme, build it (it builds to a web application) and deploy it to the server. This will take care of minification and updating caches. Just changing random files in the realm of the webserver will not.
For this you'll have to find the source files for your theme (or a whole plugins-sdk, which might contain that theme). Look at your organization's source control system, which is where I'd expect it.
Explaining how to update and build themes goes well beyond the scope of a single answer here, if these are really your first steps it might be worth getting some help from someone who has some experience with Liferay.
Is there anything I can do to temporarily turn off some files in my project tree without commenting lines inside of it? (and without deleting it as well)?
I've heard only about file order but nothing about ignore convention.
Not a documented one. But you could just rename them to filename._js
Kriegslustig has a great option. Another viable option is to drag those files to the test folder, which meteor ignores.
I have split my less/css into several files grouped by certain categories, so the single files stay easy to maintain. Though I only want to have one css file which gets imported into the layout.
For this I have - how I call it - a master less file which imports all the others like config, forms, layout and so on.
Now the problem is, that for example WinLess or all the other copilers i tried, only monitor the save of my master file, and only then compiles it. However this is stupid, because this file nearly never gets any changes. So what I would like to have is something, that detects changes on the imported less files and then only compiles the master file.
Does anyone know any tools, which are capable of that?
Or how do you manage your less files to bypass this problem?
Further Info: I have mapped the server directory locally via SSH and edit the files in there, i.e. the files are only pseudo local. They are on the server but accessible with a local path over a drive letter. The compiler should be able to work with that setup.
Thanks for the answers!
In all honesty, your best bet is to actually use Less's own compiler which will of course be the most up to date option. It will be done through command line but it's the best way to know that everything is correct, working and up-to-date.
All the information can be found in the Less Documentation Here
More information about compiling with imports can be found HERE
The latest version of WinLESS does report that it has automatic re-compiling when an #import file is changed so it could be that your version of WinLESS is out of date. (See HERE - 3rd bullet point under Features)
Alternatively, see if you can get it to work on purely local files. If this works, it may be an issue with the compiler not being able to do asynchronous checks over SSH.
I use Notepad++ with the NppExec-plugin on-save script. If you make a convention decision to always name your primary file "master.less" you can use this script:
NPP_CONSOLE 0
NPP_SAVE
if $(EXT_PART) != .less goto end
"C:\Node.JS\node_modules\.bin\lessc.cmd" -x "$(CURRENT_DIRECTORY)\master.less" > "$(CURRENT_DIRECTORY)\master.min.css"
:end
You can do something similar with any editor that supports batch scripting (like Stewartside suggests)
I'm considering using LESS for CSS development with server (or development) side processing, but I can't decide if I should keep the generated CSS files in version control. There are plenty of solutions with hooks, but this adds software dependencies to the server. A hook could just be added locally so staging and production areas on the web would get the same files. So, the question is:
Should generated CSS files be included in version control or not? Please keep in mind that some frameworks require a CSS file to exist for a particular reason (i.e. WordPress themes require a style.css file in order to be recognized).
When I say 'considering using LESS', I mean it becomes a requirement. New developers would not have the option use vanilla CSS after the choice is in favor of LESS.
Checking in derived artifacts is almost always sub-optimal.
I vote no to checking in the .css. It's only a matter of time until one of your peers or successors checks in an edit to the .css and not the .less. Then when you change the .less the prior change is lost.
You've pretty much answered your own question. It depends on how you deploy your website.
If the server is just going to pull directly from the Git repository:
1) It needs to have software installed to generate CSS from LESS.
2) or you need to include the CSS files in the repository.
If you're not pulling straight from the repository on your web server, you could have a build script that pulls from git, generates CSS, and then transfers the content to the web server(s), possibly excluding unnecessary files from the transfer.
In my opinion, Git should be used to keep all of the source for a project, and none of the "derived artifacts" (as mentioned by #thekbb). Developers need to have all tools installed to generate those derived artifacts during development and test. For deployment to test and production servers, an automated build server should take the source and create just the files needed for distribution.
In the case of software development, you'd have a Makefile with .C and .H files (for example) in your Git repository. Developers and the build server have a compiler installed that will create an executable or compiled library. When the files are packaged for distribution, the source code is not a part of the archive.
For web development, you have source files like original graphics, HTML templates and LESS files. Developers and the build server can run scripts to generate the site assets (CSS from LESS files, static HTML pages from templates, flattened images in multiple sizes/formats, etc.) When the build server deploys new builds, it copies just the files needed by the server, excluding the source graphics, templates and LESS files.
If there are people that need to review the site content, they should do it on a staging server. If that's not possible, the automated build server can create a ZIP file on an internal server that they can download for review.
Should generated CSS files be included in version control or not?
In theory they should not, but for practicality, I do usually checks in the generated css file. The reason is that it simplifies deployment since I do deployment using git; I would not need to have a less compiler installed on the server and usually not even on the machine I'm deploying from (as opposed to the machine where I'm developing on). Doing this could be useful if you have separate developer and deployer, but can sometimes also be useful even if you're deploying yourself.
Now, there are drawbacks on doing this:
You can't use git add --patch (or you really need to be very careful when doing so)
You should not modify the .css directly; instead I usually use a secondary .css file to do minor modifications without modifying the primary .less or .css file. You can also compile .less file straight into a minified css, to make it less tempting to modify the generated css.
Developers have to set up their machine to use automatic recompile tool (like SimpLess or Less.app), so the .css file is updated as soon as they save to the .less file. Without automation, you'll run into risk of the css not matching the checked-in less file.
I would not do the same when compiling from .C and .H files though, because the generated binary for those are platform specific, and also .less/.css file is usually a very small part of a larger web project so the space overhead of the additional file is small.
Good question. If you can absolutely guarantee that the CSS file gets updated when the LESS gets updated then perhaps yes - as per #Scott Simpson's comment. I suspect that this would be difficult to guarantee and what happens when the new developer get's a copy of CSS the day when they are out of sync? Also, of course, and I hadn't originally thought of this, what happens if the new developer then makes updates to the CSS file rather than the LESS?? If the CSS has to be built and isn't part of archive I can see less problems.
I would say yes -- because what happens if you want to add a developer to your workflow and they don't want or need to build .Less? It would be helpful for them to have access to only the generated file.
So I'm left maintaining a proprietary codebase from a third-party vendor. The vendor is still sort of around, but support is limp. The site is ASP.NET.
I have made some changes but I am having a really hard time getting IIS to compile these changes in. The bin/ directory has what I believe is a precompiled dll for the core classes. I've changed these but it doesn't recompile. I have tried deleting the dll but then the app refuses to build saying that the Global.asax can't inherit the type anymore, so I don't really know how to rebuild with changes.
I spent all day Saturday setting up a build environment and trying to get a testing thing working. I have just been importing into VS2008 as a web site from the local IIS server. I got it to rebuild the app without changes, but it ignores changes I would place in it.
So I need to make a solution out of this website and/or directory structure so that I can do actual, big, full grown-up rebuilds and make changes to this codebase. Anyone know how I can go about this?
EDIT: A bit more elaboration. I've tried creating a blank project and just Add Existing File... on the whole website directory. This hasn't worked, it stops the import about 10% in.
Keep in mind there are two (actually, three) levels of 'builds' or compiles going on here.
1) The DLLs in the /bin directory should be pre-built, by visual studio or otherwise. The content of .ASPX, ASCX, ASHX, ASAX etc fiels are not included in those.
2) The ASPX, etc files I noted above are then compiled by IIS when the first request comes in (normally; there are ways to change that behavior). That is the source of the error with Global.asax you are seeing; With the DLL(s) gone, the class that Global.asax is supposed to inherit from does not exist.
3) Then there is the just-in-time compilation, which is not relevant for this discussion.
It sounds like you may be missing the source files for the project, or perhaps the web site is not getting properly set up as a project to compile that DLL
Try these links, I suppose this is what you are looking for.
http://www.dotnetmafia.com/blogs/dotnettipoftheday/archive/2010/01/20/linking-files-in-visual-studio.aspx
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/306234
Not sure this question is really valid anymore. The source we were working with was rather different than it should have been. Not sure if someone got angry in the past and moved stuff around or what, but grabbing a new copy of the source fixed most of our issues. I am able to build now with an included csproj.
This doesn't really help many others with the same issue I suppose, but if you are getting weird build behavior like this, you might want to start with basics, like making sure that your source checkout is valid.
I am new in asp.net so I am not sure it is a professional way or not.
I have the project without .snl file. I just create a empty web site and then paste the files inside the folder where I created the project.
It worked for me.
I think pasting the files and folder directly by file manager will help you.