New ultra-fast SASS – beta testers needed!

Download the beta here

Microthemer now supports SASS compilation in the browser. This is faster for a few reasons:

1. There are no network connection delays, which were present before when SASS was compiled on the server
2. The JavaScript compiler appears to be generally faster than the previous PHP compiler
3. Microthemer has a unique method of selectively compiling SASS code, so that only the minimum number of selectors are included in the compile process

The following article explains how Microthemer compiles SASS code super fast, in case you’re interested.

Beta testing with ‘get out of jail free’ keyboard shortcut

If you currently use SASS with Microthemer, I would be extremely grateful if you could do your best to break the beta version and report any bugs. The beta version is live on the playground site. Remember to enable support for SASS via Preferences > CSS/SCSS > Enable SCSS.

There may be edge cases where the selective compile process misses a co-dependent selector. This will be evident when you get a SASS compilation error that isn’t due to invalid SASS code – a false positive. Microthemer reveals the code used in the selective compile via a new tab “Previous SCSS Compile” to the right of the generated CSS popup screen (Ctrl + Alt + G). If you get a false positive SASS error, please send me the error and the code shown in the selective compile so I can roll out a quick fix.

To make potential compile errors less annoying for beta testers, there is a keyboard shortcut Ctrl + Alt + P which will compile everything, in the usual SASS way. So you can start using this beta on real projects now. In many ways it is actually more stable than the current release version, as it includes a number of general bug fixes and improvements.

CSS grid and transform up next

I took an unscheduled detour to add optimised browser-based support for SASS once I grasped its wide reaching potential for GUI variables and presets. But this will need to be fully realised after comprehensive UI support for CSS grid and transform properties have been added. That’s what I’m working on right now 🙂

Cheers!
Sebastian