This plugin hasn’t been tested with the latest 3 major releases of WordPress. It may no longer be maintained or supported and may have compatibility issues when used with more recent versions of WordPress.

WP Compiler

Description

Harness the power of pre-processed CSS and minified JS in your theme or plugin, without any complicated installs or build tools. Simply tell WP Compiler where to find your source files and where to put the compiled results, then throw your install into Dev Mode. WP Compiler watches your source folders for you, and recompiles your CSS and JS on any file change. WP Compiler supports both SCSS and LESS precompilers for CSS, to suit anyone’s preference.

When you’re ready to launch a new site, just turn off Dev Mode, and your styles and javascript will be compiled & minimized and comments & source maps will be removed. With Dev mode disabled, Compiler will stop watching source directories, so there is no effect on site performance, but you can still apply a quick change at any time, by clicking the compile button in the admin toolbar.

WP Compiler relies on scssphp, lessphp, and minify.
Specific issues with the underlying compilation libraries should be submitted to their respective developers.

Screenshots

  • The admin bar interface of WP Compiler
  • The admin bar interface of WP Compiler, in dev mode
  • The settings page

FAQ

How can I combine multiple JavaScript files?

The easiest way to compile your JS is to store it all in a single directory. If you set your compilation source to be the directory path, all JS files in the directory will be combined and minified.

How can I make sure JavaScript files are minified in a specific order?

WP Compiler supports .manifest files for JavaScript. This is a custom file format in which each line consists of a relative file path to a JS file, a relative path to a directory containing JS, or a relative path to another .manifest file. for clarity, lines beginning with a hash symbol (#) are treated as comments.

Here is an example of a manifest file:

# <js.manifest>
# This is a sample JavaScript manifest file for WP Compiler
# all paths are relative to the current manifest file
# First we are going to load specific files that have to come first
test-script.js
test-script2.js
# Now let’s load a sub-manifest
partials/js.manifest
# Finally, let’s load a folder whose contents
# don’t need to be in a specific order
external-scripts/

What about AutoPrefixing, JS Transpiling, NPM includes, Require.js, Custom Task Runners or ?

Unfortunately, there is a limit to how many of the immense number of node.js build processes available can be replicated in native PHP. Please let us know about which features you’d most like to see tackled next.

Reviews

September 23, 2019
I was looking for a way to compile scss directly on the server and have a compilation there without installing Gulp on the server. From today I don’t have to watch and send files locally. Plugin works very good, Thanks!
September 21, 2019
I use this plugin successfully. Good job! It has a wide application for me. I have only one problem – if I use ‘production mode’, sass is compiled and compressed correctly, but JS (using js.manifest) generates an empty file. I will note that in the “development mode”, everything works fine! I look forward to new releases and hope to implement transpilation from ES6 to ES5 in the near future 🙂
September 17, 2019
I used this with the understrap theme to compile a customized bootstrap along with my own SCSS. This plugin is focused om it’s task to help you during development with the excellent auto-compilation when you turn on DEV MODE. You can just forget about it and edit your files and they will be compiled on save. The plugin has no impact on a production site. Thank You!
July 22, 2019
I have been manually compiling my LESS style-sheets for a few years now, then tried a few other automatic compilers from other sources with no luck. Many other methods are slow, and do not include the “Dev Mode” which this plugin includes. This plugin is simple to use, and does what it should without error. The Dev Mode feature is very nice when you need to test style-sheet changes to live site without deploying a staging site. Thank you again!
July 6, 2019
I use UIKit, and this plugin makes it incredibly easy to incorporate the .less source files into my own stylesheets and compile it all on the fly when changes are made. Thank you for making a great plugin.
March 18, 2019
A very useful tool for developers. Helps you keep your js/css clean and structured into files, for easy access. Works like a charm! Exactly what I was looking for. A true time saver. The .manifest feature is golden.
Read all 6 reviews

Contributors & Developers

“WP Compiler” is open source software. The following people have contributed to this plugin.

Contributors

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Interested in development?

Browse the code, check out the SVN repository, or subscribe to the development log by RSS.

Changelog

1.0

  • Initial Release