Sass for Meteor

This is a Sass build plugin for Meteor. It compiles Sass files with node-sass.

Note that due to a limitation in libsass, there is no support for imports with indented syntax (sass). Indented syntax does work on the top-level. A version based on dart-sass is in the works which should remove this limitation.

Meteor 1.7 introduced a change in how node_modules are handled, if you want to import sass from a node_module you need to symlink the package in your imports directory (more information below)

Installation

Install using Meteor's package management system:

> meteor add fourseven:scss

If you want to use it for your package, add it in your package control file's onUse block:

Package.onUse(function (api) {
  ...
  api.use('fourseven:scss');
  ...
});

Compatibility

Since meteor 1.4.1+ (fourseven:scss 3.9.0+), we do not have prebuild binaries anymore. You are required to set up the required toolchain yourselves.

Usage

Without any additional configuration after installation, this package automatically finds all .scss and .sass files in your project, compiles them with node-sass, and includes the resulting CSS in the application bundle that Meteor sends to the client. The files can be anywhere in your project.

File types

There are two different types of files recognized by this package:

• Sass sources (all *.scss and *.sass files that are not imports)
• Sass imports/partials, which are:
  • files that are prefixed with an underscore _
  • marked as isImport: true in the package's package.js file: api.addFiles('x.scss', 'client', {isImport: true})
  • Starting from Meteor 1.3, all files in a directory named imports/

The source files are compiled automatically (eagerly loaded). The imports are not loaded by themselves; you need to import them from one of the source files to use them.

The imports are intended to keep shared mixins and variables for your project, or to allow your package to provide several components which your package's users can opt into one by one.

Each compiled source file produces a separate CSS file. (The standard-minifiers package merges them into one file afterwards.)

Importing

You can use the regular @import syntax to import any Sass files: sources or imports.

Besides the usual way of importing files based on the relative path in the same package (or app), you can also import files from other packages or apps with the following syntax.

Importing styles from a different package:

@import "{my-package:pretty-buttons}/buttons/_styles.scss";

.my-button {
  // use the styles imported from a package
  @extend .pretty-button;
}

Importing styles from the target app:

@import "{}/client/styles/imports/colors.scss";

.my-nav {
  // use a color from the app style pallete
  background-color: @primary-branding-color;
}

This can also conveniently be used to import styles from npm modules for example:

@import "{}/node_modules/module-name/stylesheet";

Note that Meteor 1.7 introduced a change so that files in node_modules aren't automatically compiled any more. This requires you to add a symlink inside the imports directory to the pacakge in order for compilation to work. E.g.

meteor npm install the-package
cd imports
ln -s ../node_modules/the-package .

See the meteor changelog for more information.

Global include path

Sometimes a 3rd party module uses import paths that assume that the compiler is configured with specific includePaths option (e.g. Ionic, Bootstrap, etc.):

@import "ionicons-icons"; // This file is actually placed in another npm module!

Create a configuration file named "scss-config.json" at the root of your Meteor project to specify include paths that the compiler should use as an extra possibility to resolve import paths:

{
  "includePaths": [
    "{}/node_modules/ionicons/dist/scss/"
  ]
}

Sourcemaps

These are on by default.

Autoprefixer

As of Meteor 1.2 autoprefixer should preferably be installed as a separate plugin. You can do so by running:

meteor remove standard-minifiers
meteor add seba:[email protected]

In a Meteor 1.3+ project, do the same by running:

meteor remove standard-minifier-css
meteor add seba:minifiers-autoprefixer

LibSass vs Ruby Sass

Please note that this project uses LibSass. LibSass is a C++ implementation of the Ruby Sass compiler. It has most of the features of the Ruby version, but not all of them. Things are improving, so please be patient. Before you ask, I have no intention of making a version of this package that links to the Ruby version instead.

For a quick rundown on what libsass does and doesn't (currently) do, check here.