<imgstyle="float: right; height: 36px; margin: 10px 20px 20px"src="assets/img/less-logo-large.png"alt="LESS CSS">
<pclass="lead">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>Why LESS?</h3>
<p>One of Bootstrap's creators wrote a quick <ahref="http://www.wordsbyf.at/2012/03/08/why-less/">blog post about this</a>, summarized here:</p>
<ul>
<li>Bootstrap compiles faster ~6x faster with Less compared to Sass</li>
<li>Less is written in JavaScript, making it easier to us to dive in and patch compared to Ruby with Sass.</li>
<li>Less is more; we want to feel like we're writing CSS and making Bootstrap approachable to all.</li>
</ul>
<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>
<h3>Learn more</h3>
<p>Visit the official website at <ahref="http://lesscss.org">http://lesscss.org</a> to learn more.</p>
<pclass="lead">Since our CSS is written with Less and utilizes variables and mixins, it needs to be compiled for final production implementation. Here's how.</p>
<divclass="alert alert-info">
<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. 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 Windows 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="lead"><ahref="./getting-started.html">Quickly start</a> any web project by dropping in the compiled or minified CSS and JS. Layer on custom styles separately for easy upgrades and maintenance moving forward.</p>
<h3>Setup file structure</h3>
<p>Download the latest compiled Bootstrap and place into your project. For example, you might have something like this:</p>
<p>Designed and built with all the love in the world 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 <ahref="http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0"target="_blank">Apache License v2.0</a>, documentation under <ahref="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/">CC BY 3.0</a>.</p>
<p><ahref="http://glyphicons.com">Glyphicons Free</a> licensed under <ahref="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/">CC BY 3.0</a>.</p>
