<pclass="lead">Extend Bootstrap with <ahref="http://lesscss.org"target="_blank">LESS</a>, a CSS preprocessor, to take advantage of the variables, mixins, and more used to build Bootstrap's CSS.</p>
<p>Bootstrap is made with LESS at its core, a dynamic stylesheet language created by our good friend, <ahref="http://cloudhead.io">Alexis Sellier</a>. It makes developing systems-based CSS faster, easier, and more fun.</p>
<h3>What's included?</h3>
<p>As an extension of CSS, LESS includes variables, mixins for reusable snippets of code, operations for simple math, nesting, and even color functions.</p>
<p>Visit the official website at <ahref="http://lesscss.org">http://lesscss.org</a> to learn more.</p>
<h3><ahref="#variables">Variables</a></h3>
<p>Managing colors and pixel values in CSS can be a bit of a pain, usually full of copy and paste. Not with LESS though—assign colors or pixel values as variables and change them once.</p>
<h3><ahref="#mixins">Mixins</a></h3>
<p>Those three border-radius declarations you need to make in regular ol' CSS? Now they're down to one line with the help of mixins, snippets of code you can reuse anywhere.</p>
<h3>Operations</h3>
<p>Make your grid, leading, and more super flexible by doing the math on the fly with operations. Multiply, divide, add, and subtract your way to CSS sanity.</p>
<strong>Note:</strong> If you're submitting a pull request to GitHub with modified CSS, you <strong>must</strong> recompile the CSS via any of these methods.
</div>
<h2>Tools for compiling</h2>
<h3>Node with makefile</h3>
<p>Install the LESS command line compiler, JSHint, Recess, and uglify-js globally with npm by running the following command:</p>
<pre>$ npm install -g less jshint recess uglify-js</pre>
<p>Once installed just run <code>make</code> from the root of your bootstrap directory and you're all set.</p>
<p>Additionally, if you have <ahref="https://github.com/mynyml/watchr">watchr</a> installed, you may run <code>make watch</code> to have bootstrap automatically rebuilt every time you edit a file in the bootstrap lib (this isn't required, just a convenience method).</p>
<h3>Command line</h3>
<p>Install the LESS command line tool via Node and run the following command:</p>
<p>To recompile the .less files, just save them and reload your page. Less.js compiles them and stores them in local storage.</p>
<h3>Unofficial Mac app</h3>
<p><ahref="http://incident57.com/less/">The unofficial Mac app</a> watches directories of .less files and compiles the code to local files after every save of a watched .less file.</p>
<p>If you like, you can toggle preferences in the app for automatic minifying and which directory the compiled files end up in.</p>
<p>Mac, Linux, and PC app for drag and drop compiling of LESS files. Plus, the <ahref="https://github.com/Paratron/SimpLESS"target="_blank">source code is on GitHub</a>.</p>
<pclass="pull-right"><ahref="#">Back to top</a></p>
<p>Designed and built with all the love in the world <ahref="http://twitter.com/twitter"target="_blank">@twitter</a> by <ahref="http://twitter.com/mdo"target="_blank">@mdo</a> and <ahref="http://twitter.com/fat"target="_blank">@fat</a>.</p>
<p>Code licensed under the <ahref="http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0"target="_blank">Apache License v2.0</a>. Documentation licensed under <ahref="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/">CC BY 3.0</a>.</p>
<p>Icons from <ahref="http://glyphicons.com">Glyphicons Free</a>, licensed under <ahref="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/">CC BY 3.0</a>.</p>
