#chris-eppstein

If you’ve ever taken the time to read the documentation on compass extensions you’ve probably been a little overwhelmed by it. Compass extensions are powerful – an extension can provide:

1. Stylesheet libraries
2. Project templates & patterns that can install front-end assets into the user’s project.
3. Integration with an application framework (Ruby based or otherwise).
4. Custom ruby-based sass functions.
5. New command line subcommands.
6. New configuration options.

All I want to do is share some stylesheets!

But you don’t have to do any of that fancy stuff. This should be easy – and it is! Just follow these 5 simple steps:

1. Make a directory with the name of your extension, create a subdirectory named stylesheets and put your stylesheets in there:

   mkdir -p my_awesome_extension/stylesheets
   cp -r my_project/sass/utilities/* my_awesome_extension/stylesheets
   

2. Create an archive of your extension:

   tar -zcvf my_awesome_extension-0.1.0.tar.gz my_awesome_extension
   

3. Post your extension online somewhere.

4. Download/Copy the extension and unpack it into your project’s extensions directory:

   mkdir extensions # rails projects should use vendor/plugins/compass_extensions
   cd extensions
   # download or copy the extension to this folder
   tar -zxvf my_awesome_extension-0.1.0.tar.gz
   rm my_awesome_extension-0.1.0.tar.gz
   

5. You can now import your extension’s stylesheets:

   @import "my_utility"
   

That’s it. Sorry if I made it sound hard! You don’t even have to make an archive file. You could simply create a git repo and clone it when you need it – any way that gets the extension files into the project’s extensions directory.