Alternative CSS generators for Sencha Touch / ExtJS

[dawesi]

I've been wanting to write this for a while.

When I read you need ruby to generate themes, I nearly dropped ExtJS and Sencha Touch on the spot. It was that big of a shock. It isn't what you promised, in the spirit of where this community has come from, and it doesn't serve the majority of the community, rather some internal development niche. Seems like your 'community' doesn't matter as much as your consulting arm. Should we just start using jQuery instead?

I'm not installing that ruby rubbish on my computer, ever. To think that a client-side framework would tie themselves to a generator that is so niche is a seriously limiting business decision and a community killer.

I get asked all the time in other forums how to use LESS with Sencha Touch and ExtJS. People are really surprised there isn't released LESS templates. I'm seriously worried that the internal politics (and egos) that led to this decision will mean that Sencha's frameworks will become purely ruby front-ends, with three community members.

I've heard the excuses, but people want to use what they know. Politics aside, this solution also WORKS, so put your pointy hats away and LISTEN.

Can you please release LESS versions of your templates AS WELL in the next release.

[edspencer]

We looked at both but found that SASS was the more capable (I forget the details now, can forward one of the theming guys this way if you'd like to hear more). I don't much like having any other language dependencies either, but as there's no good general purpose JS engine on the desktop (Node is finally starting to get there), there's not a lot of choice. To achieve the same effect with LESS you also need to install additional software on your machine.

Two additional points on this: firstly you can still edit the CSS as you always could - we haven't taken anything away here, just added another option. Secondly, as I mentioned we don't much like a dependency here either. While I think we're using the best solution available to us for the moment, I think we have a better option going forward. We'll share more as things progress...

[olouvignes]

Just giving my 2-cents on this issue.

I do agree with the need to drop SASS as it is not a javascript solution at all.

Less can be setup with one line :

npm install less

.
It has also really evolved lately and it is now really thorough :

For instance, you can now use guards as conditionals.

.mixin (@a) when (lightness(@a) >= 50%) {
  background-color: black;
}
.mixin (@a) when (lightness(@a) < 50%) {
  background-color: white;
}
.mixin (@a) {
  color: @a;
}

Anyway, LESS is the JS/CSS Framework, and as a JS-driven company, imho, you should switch ASAP.

Moreover, i've started to ditch Ext.Templates for Handlebars-driven templates (npm install handlebars) that get compiled in native JS before packaging. It is really powerful, and again, a real JS solution.

[saprot]

+1
installing and managing ruby is a pain in the ass

[strictlyphp]

Any news on this? Will LESS be supported in the future?
It is so much nicer to work without the Ruby dependency.

[SimoAmi]

Hello,
The argument that "LESS" requires additional software to run is no longer the case.

https://github.com/cloudhead/less.js...ne-use-of-LESS

You can pretty much use java which is cross platform.

java -jar wro4j-runner-1.5.0-jar-with-dependencies.jar --preProcessors lessCss

SASS & Compass on the other hand are platform specific.