I'm trying to compile LESS CSS files with lesscss-maven-plugin, both in pure maven (with command line) and within Eclipse (Juno).
In the lesscss-maven-plugin, I need to define an output directory, but I noticed that in Eclipse WTP copies files from target/m2e-wtp
in my server (JBoss), but that this directory is ignored by the war plugin of Maven.
I succeeded to reach my goal with Maven profiles : in Eclipse I use a m2e
profile configured in Project settings, so I can define two different destination folders depending on I build in Eclipse or not.
Here is my pom.xml :
<project xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0 http://maven.apache.org/xsd/maven-4.0.0.xsd">
<modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>
<groupId>com.dgadev.motd</groupId>
<artifactId>motd</artifactId>
<version>0.0.1-SNAPSHOT</version>
<packaging>war</packaging>
<properties>
<maven.compiler.source>7</maven.compiler.source>
<maven.compiler.target>7</maven.compiler.target>
<project.build.sourceEncoding>UTF-8</project.build.sourceEncoding>
</properties>
<dependencies>
....
</dependencies>
<build>
<plugins>
<plugin>
<groupId>org.lesscss</groupId>
<artifactId>lesscss-maven-plugin</artifactId>
<version>1.3.3</version>
<configuration>
<outputDirectory>${project.build.directory}/resources/css</outputDirectory>
</configuration>
<executions>
<execution>
<goals>
<goal>compile</goal>
</goals>
</execution>
</executions>
</plugin>
</plugins>
</build>
<profiles>
<profile>
<id>m2e</id>
<build>
<plugins>
<plugin>
<groupId>org.lesscss</groupId>
<artifactId>lesscss-maven-plugin</artifactId>
<version>1.3.3</version>
<configuration>
<outputDirectory>${project.build.directory}/m2e-wtp/web-resources/resources/css</outputDirectory>
</configuration>
<executions>
<execution>
<goals>
<goal>compile</goal>
</goals>
</execution>
</executions>
</plugin>
</plugins>
</build>
</profile>
</profiles>
This works, but is there a better way to do this, without the profile trick ?
I found another solution with a different less compiler : wro4j. With this compiler, both exists maven and m2e plugins. In addition, a tutorial (for building boostrap) can be found here: m2e-wro4j