Serving a custom HttpHandler files with Cassini in Visual Studio 2010

Question

Just playing around with our Less HttpHandler for CSS preprocessing using Visual Studio 2010 and ASP.NETMVC 2 and I am unable to serve the .Less file type how I'd like to.

I have added a handler section to the web.config which is all that was previously required with VS 2008 when using Cassini:

<httpHandlers>
  <add type="dotless.Core.LessCssHttpHandler,dotless.Core" validate="false" path="*.Less" verb="*"/>
</httpHandlers>

With VS2010 the file is being served as plain text. Is additional information required by the MVC framework or the Cassini change with 2010?

Edit:

I don't really care about finding anyway to serve Less files with VS2010 (I know about the T4 template). I'm trying to find out specifically why serving the HttpHandler fails.

Answer 1

Maybe this is what you need?

T4CSS: A T4 Template for .Less CSS With Compression

It effectively generates minified CSS files for each .less file. This should give you the benefits of .less, along with having them being transformed into ordinary CSS files!

Answer 2

Is your Http Handler even being called? I don't have much experience with IIS7 specifically, but I do know that only certain file/request types are routed to the ASP.NET pipeline (such as .aspx and .ascx).

If the webserver isn't configured to send .less requests to asp.net then your .net Http Handler won't get a look in.

I'm assuming the HTTP Handler you refer to is a .net one you've written - but it would be the case for any handler.