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Build Static Websites

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Re: Build Static Websites

#51

Post by teleclimber »

trevordixon wrote: post #44
rikkus wrote: post #27

I like the static site idea (I used it for years for my personal site), but I also like having a web front end for editing. I can't find a static site generator with a dynamic admin/posting end. Anyone seen one?

I started a working on a little node-webkit app with a markdown editor and some node.js static site generator embedded, giving a nice UI for editing and generating the site. I never got it working well enough to use, let alone share, but I hope somebody else does it someday.

Yeah it's a really hard problem (content editing in the browser). I am working on something like this now (for HTML content, not markdown specifically) and all I can say is it's prickly. The browser's content editing APIs are terrible so you have to do most everything yourself. But then there are some things that are very difficult to emulate, like selections. Still I think it's worth doing because I am tired of hand-coding my HTML pages all the time, and I think someone who can figure this might make a few dollars.

Re: Build Static Websites

#52

Post by Kenji »

sfeng wrote: post #48
Kenji wrote: post #26

I get the point he's making, but when I want to add something as simple as a counter my website already stops being static. The question you have to ask yourself: How many static websites are in your "favourite" folder? When I look into it, I have a hard time finding a single one.

Fortunately websites can run javascript now, allowing you to do virtually any dynamic thing you need. Counters in particular are an interesting example, because they were inserted as images into websites long before the idea of a dynamic website was popularized. You can see many of the things you can do just on the client in our apps list: https://eager.io/apps . We don't have a counter in there yet, but it's certain…

I'm not sure if I don't understand or you don't understand. No, a counter requires (at least) one integer of persistent memory. And if it's not on your server it's on someone else's server. Bottom line, your site stops being static.

Re: Build Static Websites

#53

Post by michaelmior »

sfeng wrote: post #21
michaelmior wrote: post #15

"never has to be updated" Not sure what is meant by this.

It's referring to system updates. The need to update your MySQL version, or your Bash version when there's an new vulnerability. All the things you have to do to keep a server on the internet secure and operational over time.

I assumed as much. But someone still needs to do that for the server hosting your static website. And for a dynamic site, you still have the option to offload operational concerns to a third party.

Re: Build Static Websites

#54

Post by rakoo »

I get that building static websites is interesting, if only because they're easily backupable, deployable and are generally lightweight.

But if the problem is about resisting traffic, then that's the reason why CDNs were invented: cloudflare is an example, and the seemingly unactive coralcdn (http://www.coralcdn.org/), even simpler to "install" and has a very interesting architecture (I encourage anyone interested in P2P stuff to take a look at their papers).

Keeping your server behind some form of CDN also has the advantage that you keep control over the actual storage of your data.

Re: Build Static Websites

#55

Post by ethread »

slimsag wrote: post #19
CJefferson wrote: post #17

Static website generators seem to come and go -- would anyone like to comment on one they like that seems to be lasting the test of time? The obvious one seems to be jekyll (possibly with octopress on top of it), but I'm interested in any others.

I don't know about "lasting the test of time", but I recently used Hugo (Jekyll clone written in Go) and found it impressive. http://gohugo.io/

I've been using Hugo for a couple of months and I've been impressed with its speed and ease of use. Here's a short post with my initial impressions: http://www.threadhunter.com/2014/12/hugo-static-website-engi...

Re: Build Static Websites

#56

Post by rikkus »

danielnaab wrote: post #28
rikkus wrote: post #27

I like the static site idea (I used it for years for my personal site), but I also like having a web front end for editing. I can't find a static site generator with a dynamic admin/posting end. Anyone seen one?

For many use-cases, http://prose.io works well. You can then use TravisCI (or the like) to trigger the site rebuild and deployment.

Ah yes I saw prose before and it looked promising. A bit techie for most, but it's fine for me. I had wondered about build and deploy - thanks for the pointer to TravisCI.

Re: Build Static Websites

#57

Post by tumba »

sogen wrote: post #5
ckluis wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would be nice if wordpress itself had the option of pressing a button saying - push to static. When you make an edit -> update static files. This would be fantastically easier + it would potentially mean 1/4 of the web gets faster overnight.

+1 oh man, that's a great idea, that would grow WP adoption rate by 1000x

In fact, that was the way Moveable Type worked and was a dominant publishing tool before WordPress took off.

Re: Build Static Websites

#58

Post by michaelbuddy »

ckluis wrote: post #4
jeffreyrogers wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> is there a WP plugin to export to a static site? Here is one I found [1], I've never used it though, so I don't know how good it is. I'm sure there are others as well. It would be nice if there were a static site generator with an interface as nice as WP. [1]: https://github.com/megumiteam/staticpress

It would be nice if wordpress itself had the option of pressing a button saying - push to static. When you make an edit -> update static files. This would be fantastically easier + it would potentially mean 1/4 of the web gets faster overnight.

ModX - a PHP cms which is fairly popular has a static site exporter. I havent' played with modx in a while, hopefully it's still a feature since their many updates in the last 5 years.

Re: Build Static Websites

#59

Post by sogen »

ckluis wrote: post #8
sogen wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

+1 oh man, that's a great idea, that would grow WP adoption rate by 1000x

It literally couldn’t grow that much. It can only go from 1/4 of the web to 4/4 of the web. :)

I Always give a 110%, maybe my math is wrong!

Re: Build Static Websites

#60

Post by sogen »

ckluis wrote: post #8
sogen wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

+1 oh man, that's a great idea, that would grow WP adoption rate by 1000x

It literally couldn’t grow that much. It can only go from 1/4 of the web to 4/4 of the web. :)

I Always give a 110%, maybe my math is wrong!
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