Getting started with Compass

Compass is an open-source CSS authoring framework which uses the Sass stylesheet language to make writing stylesheets powerful and easy. If you're not familiar with Sass, Go to sass-lang.com to learn all about how it works.

Installing Compass

To install, please follow the steps found in the Compass installation guide.

This will install Compass and Sass too. If you want to verify that compass is installed, run:

$ compass version

Watching and Compiling your Project

When doing development on your project, you can run the compass watcher to keep your CSS files up to date as changes are made.

$ cd /path/to/project
$ compass watch

When it comes time to compile your css files for production use, pass the --production compiler option to select defaults that optimize your output for end-users:

$ compass compile --production

Using Compass without the command line tools

You can use compass without the compass command line tools. In some cases, this may make it easier to integrate with sass-based compilers and frameworks that do not explicitly support Compass.

$ gem install compass-core
$ cat <<- EOF > _project-setup.scss
\$project-path: absolute-path(join-file-segments(".."));
@import "compass/configuration";
\$compass-options: (http_path: "/");
@include compass-configuration(\$compass-options);
EOF
# Add to the top of each sass file: @import "project-setup";
# Compile using the Sass command line:
$ sass -r compass-core --update sass:css

More command line options

Full documentation of all compass commands can be found by running:

$ compass help

To see the options available and description for a compass command run:

$ compass help <command>

Where <command> is one of the compass commands (E.g. compile)