Switch From Node SASS to Dart SASS for Old Sub-Themes

Warning: LibSass and Node Sass are deprecated. While they will continue to receive maintenance releases indefinitely, there are no plans to add additional features or compatibility with any new CSS or Sass features. Projects that still use it should move onto Dart Sass.

https://www.npmjs.com/package/node-sass

  • The maintainers no longer recommend LibSass for new Sass projects. Use Dart Sass instead.

  • The maintainers recommend all existing LibSass users make plans to eventually move onto Dart Sass, and that all Sass libraries make plans to eventually drop support for LibSass.

  • The maintainers are no longer planning to add any new features to LibSass, including compatibility with new CSS features.

  • LibSass and Node Sass will continue to be maintained indefinitely on a best-effort basis, including fixing major bugs and security issues and maintaining compatibility with the latest Node versions.

When to Switch to Dart Sass

It is an optional direction to use the latest Dart Sass in old projects. An old project can stay using the old Node Sass package compiler. But the NPM or Yarn may face issues with old packages which are related to old not updated or no longer maintained.

Projects which had generated a new sub-theme using the Vartheme BS4 9.0.13 and later do not need to do anything. They are using Dart Sass already.

Issue #3269723: Switched from deprecated Node Sass to Dart Sass compiler using Gulp

Old sub-themes which had been generated from an older Vartheme BS4 version. 9.0.11 and older should follow the following steps to have the full switch:

Update Npm and Nodejs to 18 Lts Version

curl -sL https://deb.nodesource.com/setup_18.x | sudo -E bash - 
sudo apt update
sudo apt install nodejs
sudo apt install build-essential

curl -L https://npmjs.com/install.sh | sudo -E bash -
sudo apt update
sudo apt install npm

Switch From Node Sass to Dart Sass Compiler

  • Change the package.json file with the following main important changes. Update local packages by running yarn install in the folder of the theme.

    ...
    ...
    "sass": "~1",
    "gulp": "~4",
    "gulp-autoprefixer": "~8",
    "gulp-clean-css": "~4",
    "gulp-concat": "~2",
    "gulp-csscomb": "~3",
    "gulp-filter": "~7",
    "gulp-html-replace": "~1",
    "gulp-postcss": "~8",
    "gulp-rename": "~2",
    "gulp-sass": "~5",
    "gulp-scss-lint": "~1",
    "gulp-sourcemaps": "~3",
    "gulp-uglify": "~3",
    ...
    ...

  • Change the gulpfile.js file from having the following required statements for the SASS object:

From sass = require("gulp-sass"),

To sass = require("gulp-sass")(require('sass')),

Follow the latest changes from the following links for the complete list of changes that can be copied from them the VARTHEME BS4 SUBTHEME:

This includes an all-new update for coding standards and linting with the Drupal Core.

Re-Compile Your Scss Files to CSS Using the New Dart Sass

After changing all needed files

Run yarn install

and yarn theme:build or gulp compile

Check on changes after the re-compile and regression testing will be needed for sure.

Add the needed Built-in Modules from Dart Sass Add @use 'sass:math'; to the top of the file and use math.div

Known Issues After the Switch

In case forgotten to add the @use 'sass:math';

Custom SCSS files with old node-sass math divisions should be changed to use the sass:math module.

If not the yarn theme:build or gulp compile will face issues like:

Deprecation Warning: Using / for division outside of calc() is deprecated and will be removed in Dart Sass 2.0.0.

Recommendation: math.div($hero-max-height, 2) or calc($hero-max-height / 2)

More info and automated migrator: https://sass-lang.com/d/slash-div

   ╷
79 │     $top_max_value: $hero-max-height/2;
   │                     ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
   ╵
    scss/components/varbase-heroslider-media.component.scss 79:21  root stylesheet

PreviousAdd Preloaded Fonts in VarthemeNextLaunching a Varbase Site to Production

Last updated