BundleTransformer with LESS - Decent Example Exists anywhere?

Question

I really like the idea of this BundleTransformer plugin from NuGet, and I see that they have LESS support. But ...

After weeks of trying, I cannot find any decent example of how to use it. The documentation is unclear, to say the very least. This is the closest I could find, which does not compile or work.

who-could-ask-for-more-with-less-css

Well, the simple answer is that I could ask for more.

Can someone please assist me with the simple task of creating a bundle that has .less files in it, that will run? I am completely lost.

Answer 1

I would suggest reading the wiki page for bundle transformer and also, as the wiki page suggests, make sure you are familiar with ASP.NET bundling and minification.

If you follow the examples of usage you should be up and running.

Answer 2

I know this is an older post but figured I'd chime in. The Bundle Transformer Codeplex discussion board (Feb 2015) mentions that BundleTransformer is no longer considered a modern client-side build tool and they are recommending you go with Gulp or Grunt - which both have support starting in Visual Studio 2013.3 via VSIX extensions and more baked in to VS2014. FYI -This Scott Hanselman post explains how to get up and going with Grunt and Gulp in Visual Studio. I think if you're using BundleTransformer for simple Less compilation it works fine, but doesn't allow you to do things like generate CSS Sourcemaps which make your browser's dev tools aware of the Less source files, which in my humble opinion is critical for using a CSS preprocessor - the ability to see the LESS line numbers of your source files in the styles pane.