Getting ready

You can install Sass on Linux, Mac, and Windows. Sass has been written in Ruby. So, installing Sass requires that you install Ruby first. Ruby is a dynamic open source programming language with its focus on simplicity and productivity. You can read more about Ruby in the Ruby and MongoDB Web Development Beginner's Guide book by Gautam Rege. You will find this book at https://www.packtpub.com/web-development/ruby-and-mongodb-web-development-beginners-guide. If you are using Mac, you are lucky because OS X has Ruby preinstalled. Linux users should use a packages manager, such as Advanced Package Tool (APT), to install Ruby:

 sudo apt-get install ruby-full

Other methods to install Ruby on Linux can be found at https://www.ruby-lang.org/en/documentation/installation/.

Finally, if you are on Windows, RubyInstaller is available. RubyInstaller is a single-click installer that includes the Ruby language, an execution environment, important documentations, and more. You can find RubyInstaller at http://rubyinstaller.org/.

How to do it...

After installing Ruby, you can use the following steps to install Sass on your system:

How it works...

RubyGems is Ruby's package manager. Ruby packages, called gems, can easily be installed via the command line and be distributed over the Internet. Many gems are hosted at https://rubygems.org/ and https://github.com/. Also, Sass is distributed as a gem. The Sass gem will not only install Sass, but also install all the dependencies for you. Installing Sass with RubyGems will be easy and straightforward.

The gem install sass command in this recipe should install Ruby Sass and all its dependencies.

There's more...

After installing Sass, you can use the --help option to get a list of the available options and a short instruction on how to use the command-line compiler:

sass --h+elp

Besides the Sass compiler tool, the Ruby Sass gem also installs the sass-convert command-line tool. The sass-convert tool can be used to convert files from the indented syntax into the newer SCSS syntax and vice versa. Notice that you can also use sass-convert to migrate the CSS code Sass or the SCSS code. This will give you some basic nesting when migrating your CSS code.

In the Writing Sass or SCSS recipe of this chapter, you can read about the differences between the original indented syntax and the newer SCSS syntax.

The Ruby on rails apps can also use the Ruby Sass gem to compile the CSS code. Read more about Ruby on rails and Sass in Chapter 14, Ruby on Rails and Sass, of this book.

See also