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Annette Martinez
10,737 PointsLost With Sass Set-up
I just started the Sass section, after happily completing the other sections for the front-end developer. I followed the directions and downloaded Ruby and verified on the cmd line that it was installed.
But now I'm stuck. So far, I can't figure out how to do what the instructor is doing. He did a little code on a text editor, and then checked the file in Sass. How does the text editor connect with the Sass? I suspect I need to figure out how to get to the correct directory or something. My cmd prompt is C:\Users\Annette\ and I don't know if that's where it should be or how to get to another place. It's been years since I've done any DOS commands.
So then, I did another suggest route for Sass, and that was downloading Koala. I can't figure out what to do with that either.
Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.
6 Answers
Annette Martinez
10,737 PointsHoward, I tried Scout, and it worked perfectly for me to get through the first set of Sass instruction. Thanks for all your help.
Kevin, I will definitely try SassMeister too. Thank you for all your help!
James Barnett
39,199 Points> in the context of following along the material of the Sass course, SassMeister or CodePen are far better choices
I'm a bit of a codepen addict, so that's the way I did all of my front end development courses.
Kevin Lozandier
Courses Plus Student 53,747 PointsHi, Annette Martinez:
I'll be happy to help you solve your problems using Sass, being a happy user of Sass for some time on Windows, Linux, and Mac.
First and foremost, if you're on Windows, you won't be able to use Sass without installing Ruby. You'll need to install it using Ruby Installer
From there you just have to literally put one line of code in the command line
gem install sass
If you're on Mac, good news: Sass is literally one-line away from being on your computer by inputting the same line w/ Terminal. Terminal is found in Application > Utilities > Terminal.app
Alternatively, you can use Codepen.io or even better, SassMeister.
With either SassMeister or CodePen.io you can immediately try out the benefits of Sass immediately and follow along with Hampton without spending your money. Don't pay for an app such as Scout just yet.
When it comes to paid apps using Sass
I highly, highly recommend trying out Sass without buying a paid up because it's not as hard as people make it out to be to pay for such an app immediately.
In my opinion, It's when you're skilled enough that you need to streamline your workflow that involves a variety of preprocessor languages as well as other general, front-end optimizations AND planning tasks that they might be of help instead of using Grunt, Gulp, or a full stack framework such as Rails.
With that mind , I would recommend Mixture.io, Prepros, or CodeKit.
Along with preprocessing your files and optimizing your images, Mixture.io for example allows you to set up and plan the overall structure of your site with partials; plan out how data is sturctured for each page with models, and host the siite to be signed off by the client (or as a Github or Jekyll site).
At worst, using a <del>paid</del> app like Scout.app to try out Sass first despite the many more immediate ways of starting to use Sass is wasting <del>money at trying something you haven't even yet made up your mind yet is worth it to you</del> valuable time learning how to use Sass in a way that'll maximize your ability to transition a variety of ways from the strong foundation the course provides you.
Annette Martinez
10,737 PointsThanks, Howard, I'll check that out later as I have to leave the house now. :)
Howard Slatter
8,049 PointsI didn't pay anything for Scout App, it's free. Compass I think, is $7, but I don't use it so I'm not sure.
Kevin Lozandier
Courses Plus Student 53,747 PointsThere is no fee associated with Compass.
Either way, in the context of following along the material of the Sass course, SassMeister or CodePen are far better choices.
They both also have the bonus of making it easy for people to help you out with things you don't understand about Sass or Sass combined with Compass.
SassMeister also has an invaluable added benefit of trying out the most popular and invaluable extensions that the Sass community has recommended without the fuss of installing them on your computer.
Howard Slatter
8,049 PointsI used something called 'Scout App', also watched a quick video on you tube on how to use it. http://mhs.github.io/scout-app/ If you get an error when trying to start it make sure you have Java installed.
There was no command line stuff and it was all very easy.
Kevin Lozandier
Courses Plus Student 53,747 PointsKevin Lozandier
Courses Plus Student 53,747 PointsI strongly recommend taking the Console Foundations course.
It's an essential skill for both web designers & developers.