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Static Website Generators

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Re: Static Website Generators

#221
post #88

Have really wanted to look at making WP into a static site generator. Have too many clients using WP that could be using it as a static site but won't move away from it... So the admin backend / familiar publishing interface but generating it out to something that could be dumped into S3z Some people have done variations of it but not well or easy. Is easy enough to trap events that should trigger page regeneration.…

Been a few years since I looked at WP, but isn't this essentially what the super cache etc. plugins used to do, i.e. generate static versions of pages?

Re: Static Website Generators

#222
I think the future may be CMS-style applications that do static publishing. Either run locally (may be a great use for electron actually), and/or as a service. At least in this space competitively, the biggest complaints tend to center around the amount of manual configuration/changes... opposed to the overhead of say wordpress.

The only downside to static publishing to say S3/ABS is that you loose server-side analytics to some extent.

Re: Static Website Generators

#223
post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Single page app uses .js to load page inside index.html w/ push state. I like this 'serverless' approach.

It most certainly is not serverless.

Do you read? Ex: http://martinfowler.com/bliki/Serverless.html

Or dozens of other? You are not in a cave.

Re: Static Website Generators

#224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Might be better to use Reddit. You could create a subreddit explicitly to serve as your comment section. This achieves the goal of outsourcing your comments to an established site without raising concerns of astroturfing.

No, the whole point of being linked to HN would be to have feedback from the community . If you prefer, if I was to use Reddit, I would rather like to be able to submit automatically all the posts of my "programming oriented website" to /r/programming , not /r/yannkempf.

I'm sure plenty of people blogging do that already even if by hand, I'd be weary of this approach.

Re: Static Website Generators

#225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This very website we are on uses a flat-file structure (w/ millions of users). I'm curious why this is such a deal breaker for your current needs?

Not sure how HN works under the hood, so I have no real comparison. I also have no real reason to say it's not compatible beyond not thinking that locking primitives for a shared filesystem are likely inadequate. But I'm always open to being proven wrong. So, care to provide some good reading explaining why a FF system is more than adequate?

I don't know what you are trying to accomplish exactly, but it seems like you've convinced yourself that you need a more complex file storage mechanism. If you had listed any reason for this function, I might've understood. But, you didn't, so I had to ask. Here's 2 threads where this discussion has been had before:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5279440

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7338923

Re: Static Website Generators

#226

I've tried pelican, lektor, hugo, and even a cobbled-together flask-based (using frozen pages module) custom static site builder. One of the biggest challenges/time sinks/annoyances of adopting any of these types of platforms is the time spent on the initial wiring up of the templates. Maybe I'm lazy in this regard, but I'd rather use a GUI/WYSIWYG interface to do the initial UX (not talking about design here, only p…

I've used Lektor recently and I think you're missing its main advantage: it does NOT aim to introduce web dev to non developers or to dramatically simplify the process of wiring up templates. In fact, its use of models is an additional step in the traditional process for static site generators. BUT...once setup by a developer, Lektor's structure and Mac app allows a non-technical user to edit files and publish change…

Certainly good points. It is definitely headed in the right direction with relation to its use of a web GUI, and its content models (at least once one wraps one's brain around the model approach). Perhaps I should have not expected it to make template wiring easier. Please don't get me wrong, I'm actually a fan of lektor, and wish it to really succeed. ;-)

Re: Static Website Generators

#227
post #93

The main problem for me is that the absolute majority of them target blogs and if you try to adapt them for a more complicated website you gonna dive very deep inside the code or continue constant search. Now I look at hugo as it seems to be a more general-purpose tool that allows to play with structure and content types.

If you want something that can do complex sites take a look at http://nanoc.ws: we created a very large multi-domain site using it, in 9 languages. Our tool chain includes linters, spell checkers, multi stage deploy scripts, and capybara tests for the Javascript parts. Admittedly we've heavily customised nanoc with rake tasks and ruby scripts, but it lends itself well for that.

Re: Static Website Generators

#228

I think the future may be CMS-style applications that do static publishing. Either run locally (may be a great use for electron actually), and/or as a service. At least in this space competitively, the biggest complaints tend to center around the amount of manual configuration/changes... opposed to the overhead of say wordpress. The only downside to static publishing to say S3/ABS is that you loose server-side analyt…

But then, couldn't you insert the google analytics javascript snippet within the html that gets loaded/served up from S3? Or did you mean something like piwik? I have to think S3 would not be a block here, as many users of static site generators also use some sort of analytics tool.

Re: Static Website Generators

#229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right now there's domain and email verification so that you don't get spammed from people taking your form and embedding it into their website, but I have some upcoming plans for spam detection. In fact, the first parts of this system is in place already-- if you have an account and create a pre-validated form, you can go into your dashboard to see the responses and mark them as spam. This will become the training da…

Ah, I more meant "how do you make sure people don't send spam to arbitrary destinations sending your form", but I see you're doing email verification of the recipient first. I thought "put this form on your site" was literally all there was, at first, hence the question.

I see-- yes, when you embed a new form, you receive a verification email for the page URL-email combination. Meaning if you change the email address or use the form on another URL, you get another verification email.

If you register for an account, however, you can bypass this and pre-register your domains and verify your email address and get a special URL without your email address in it (it's an arbitrary token).

Re: Static Website Generators

#230
post #88

Have really wanted to look at making WP into a static site generator. Have too many clients using WP that could be using it as a static site but won't move away from it... So the admin backend / familiar publishing interface but generating it out to something that could be dumped into S3z Some people have done variations of it but not well or easy. Is easy enough to trap events that should trigger page regeneration.…

Been a few years since I looked at WP, but isn't this essentially what the super cache etc. plugins used to do, i.e. generate static versions of pages?

Yes, but there is still a vulnerable (dynamic) WP backend sitting on the same domain name.
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