We came across this unusual problem when developing. So for starters, there is a Gem that we use and a test application reside in the test folder of the Gem. The Gem uses only Javascript in the app/assets folder and has a minimal Ruby code.
The Gem uses Bootstrap's less version to set the CSS. We use the mixins by Bootstrap and overwrite variables and stuff. The Gem still used SASS and we felt a little odd with writing mixed CSS. Therefore we moved all the stuff to less files and put it all in assets/stylesheets. Nice and organized.
Now we had the problem. We made a change to the less files and the application did not load them. We had put all our imports in a main file and any change to the main file reflected in the test app. but not if the change were done inside the individual imports.
We wanted to analyze if the problem was with Sprockets or with less-rails. After some probe and hunt we concluded that the problem indeed was with less-rails. The Gem caches the imports which prevent any compilation after the import to the base file (first level).
I tried adding options like
inside the environment files, but alas! no change what so ever.
So we had to do the inevitable. Look at files and trigger a restart and cache clear.
The process was to be something like :
2 Guard plugins were used for this :
guard-process => To run the rake process
guard-pow => To restart Pow
The file looked something like this
The guard command needed to run with
-w because we were looking at a change from another directory
-p for polling
-i for no interactions
phew..
The Gem uses Bootstrap's less version to set the CSS. We use the mixins by Bootstrap and overwrite variables and stuff. The Gem still used SASS and we felt a little odd with writing mixed CSS. Therefore we moved all the stuff to less files and put it all in assets/stylesheets. Nice and organized.
Now we had the problem. We made a change to the less files and the application did not load them. We had put all our imports in a main file and any change to the main file reflected in the test app. but not if the change were done inside the individual imports.
We wanted to analyze if the problem was with Sprockets or with less-rails. After some probe and hunt we concluded that the problem indeed was with less-rails. The Gem caches the imports which prevent any compilation after the import to the base file (first level).
I tried adding options like
config.consider_all_requests_local = true
config.action_controller.perform_caching = false inside the environment files, but alas! no change what so ever.
So we had to do the inevitable. Look at files and trigger a restart and cache clear.
The process was to be something like :
if Change? rake tmp:clear powder restart (or touch tmp/restart) [we use pow]2 Guard plugins were used for this :
guard-process => To run the rake process
guard-pow => To restart Pow
The file looked something like this
# RUN bundle exec guard -p -i -w ../../ guard 'pow' do watch(%r{app/assets/stylesheets/**/.*\.less$}) end
guard 'process', :name => 'ClearCache', :command => 'rake tmp:clear' do watch(%r{app/assets/stylesheets/**/.*\.less$}) end The guard command needed to run with
-w because we were looking at a change from another directory
-p for polling
-i for no interactions
phew..
