How to use ASP.Net MVC 4 to Bundle LESS files in Release mode?

Question

I\'m trying to have LESS files in my web project, and have the MVC 4 bundling functionality call into the dotLess library to turn the LESS into CSS, then minify the result a

Answer 1

As a complement to the accepted answer, I created a LessBundle class, which is the Less eqivalent of the StyleBundle class.

LessBundle.cs code is:

using System.Web.Optimization;

namespace MyProject
{
    public class LessBundle : Bundle
    {
        public LessBundle(string virtualPath) : base(virtualPath, new IBundleTransform[] {new LessTransform(), new CssMinify()})
        {

        }

        public LessBundle(string virtualPath, string cdnPath)
            : base(virtualPath, cdnPath, new IBundleTransform[] { new LessTransform(), new CssMinify() })
        {

        }
    }
}

Usage is similar to the StyleBundle class, specifying a LESS file instead of a CSS file.

Add the following to your BundleConfig.RegisterBundles(BundleCollection) method:

bundles.Add(new LessBundle("~/Content/less").Include(
                 "~/Content/MyStyles.less"));

Update

This method works fine with optimization switched off, but I ran into some minor problems (with CSS resource paths) when optimization was switched on. After an hour researching the issue I discovered that I have reinvented the wheel...

If you do want the LessBundle functionality I describe above, check out System.Web.Optimization.Less.

The NuGet package can be found here.