Friend designer of mine was compiling his LESS file manually and uploading it with Coda (Remote Site) spending lots of precious time. He asked me:
Is it possible to automatically detect file change on the Linux server and compile without delay at all?
I have made a script and I publish the details:
First, you need to install "npm" on the server by typing this into the console:
sudo apt-get install npm inotify-tools
sudo npm install -g less
sudo nano /usr/local/bin/lesscwatch
Paste the following into the file:
#!/bin/bash
# Detect changes in .less file and automatically compile into .css
[ "$2" ] || { echo "Specify both .less and .css files"; exit 1; }
inotifywait . -m -e close_write | while read x op f; do.
if [ "$f" == "$1" ]; then.
lessc $f > $2 && echo "`date`: COMPILED";.
fi
done
Save, exit, then execute:
sudo chmod +x /usr/local/bin/lesscwatch
You are all done. Next time you need to work with your LESS files, you will need to open terminal (Coda has a built-in), go to the folder of your file (using cd) and execute this:
lesscwatch main.less main.css
It will output information about successful compilations or errors. Enjoy.