Static site generator using Git for storage. Comes with free integrated Git + Pages solution including Live WebStats.

Make Me Static, Static Site Generator, Git, Pages and Live Stats

<p>Welcome to the Make Me Static Plugin for WordPress. This plugin is a static site generator and aims to create and maintain a static copy of your WordPress website within a Git repository. This version includes automatic access to a free Git solution and Page provider platform. (so no setup or credentials are necessary)</p>
<p>Alternatively the static site can be generated and stored in a GitLab Git Repository that can be used as a source for a static page platform such as CloudFlare Pages. The plugin provides customised sitemap and change tracking which connects to an external crawling service which does all the heavy lifting.</p>
<p>We have made great efforts in this version to minimise the configuration required to get going, if you have any problems (with anything) please let is know and we&#8217;ll do our best to help. Check out this YouTube video for an introduction to static front-ends and a walk-through of converting a pre-existing WordPress site into a WordPress site with a static front-end.</p>
<p><span class="embed-youtube" style="text-align:center; display: block;"><iframe loading="lazy" class="youtube-player" width="750" height="422" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ZJ5IDgZ9u-Q?version=3&#038;rel=1&#038;showsearch=0&#038;showinfo=1&#038;iv_load_policy=1&#038;fs=1&#038;hl=en-US&#038;autohide=2&#038;wmode=transparent" allowfullscreen="true" style="border:0;" sandbox="allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-popups allow-presentation allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox"></iframe></span></p>
<h3>How the service works</h3>
<p>The plugin connects to a directory service on the Internet at one of the directory URL&#8217;s listed below. This in turn will point the plugin to a &#8216;crawler&#8217; that has been allocated to your site.<br />
When you ask the plugin to make a static copy of your site, it will instruct the crawler to visit all the pages on your site to determine which have changed since it&#8217;s last visit. Any changed pages will be copied to a Git repository, which in turn can publish pages directly to a page hosting service.</p>
<p>The default option is to use a Git account hosted by MadPenguin, and to publish the site on MadPenguin&#8217;s page hosting platform. As a result the default options do not require any specific Git or Page hosting configuration to get going. If on the other hand you choose to use a hosted Git service such as GitLab, you will need to enter some credentials for your online account, and from there configure your GitLab account to publish to a page hosting service.</p>
<p>Once you have successfully published a static copy of your site, all you need to do is point your domain at the address of the page hosting service, and asssuming your domain matches the one you<br />
entered when setting up your profile within the plugin, you should be up and running.</p>
<p>The service retains a metadata database for the site which includes file names, sizes and modification times, together with any credentials that have been added when creating a profile. (Sensitive credentials and other information is encrypted at rest).  The external service is responsible for all scanning and processing activities to mitigate strain on the WordPress server.<br />
The only private data transferred to the external service is the information you enter when creating a profile. All other information is obtained via an anonymous external scan, hence publically available. If you have selected the default Git option, then the service will also retain a static copy of the site.</p>
<h3>Useful references</h3>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://makemestatic.com/" rel="nofollow ugc">The service product page</a></li>
<li><a href="https://makemestatic.com/terms-and-conditions/" rel="nofollow ugc">Terms and Conditions of Service</a></li>
<li><a href="https://makemestatic.com/privacy-policy/" rel="nofollow ugc">Privacy Policy</a></li>
<li><a href="https://makemestatic.com/getting-started/" rel="nofollow ugc">Getting Started</a></li>
<li><a href="https://makemestatic.com/service-status/" rel="nofollow ugc">Service Status</a></li>
<li><a href="https://github.com/oddjobz/make_me_static/issues" rel="nofollow ugc">Support Forum</a></li>
</ul>
<p>Make me static directory service URL&#8217;s;</p>
<ul>
<li>https://mms-directory-1.madpenguin.uk</li>
<li>https://mms-directory-2.madpenguin.uk</li>
<li>https://mms-directory-3.madpenguin.uk</li>
</ul>
<p>Other URL&#8217;s used to load code;</p>
<ul>
<li>https://assets.makemestatic.com, source for stage-2 crawler UI</li>
<li>https://status.makemestatic.com, endpoints that indicate the currently deployed version of a site</li>
<li>https://weblogs.makemestatic.com, source for dynamically loaded weblogs data / websockets</li>
<li>https://mms-crawler-*.madpenguin.uk, location of the actual crawlers (via websocket)</li>
</ul>
<p>Note that this in an integrated solution, the 3rd party crawling service is owned and operated by the plugin authors on a combination of cloud hosted and on premesis equipment.</p>
<h3>Live Web Statistics (<em>experimental</em>)</h3>
<p>If you opt to use the integrated Pages platform, this also provides a live WebStats option that uses the following URL;</p>
<ul>
<li>https://weblogs.makemestatic.com</li>
</ul>
<p>This allows live webstats to be seamlessly delivered into your control panel and updated in real-time via a websocket connection. Do not use this URL directly!<br />
This URL is only referenced once you click on the webstats icon next to your profile.</p>
<h3>How Does it work?</h3>
<p>The WordPress site is scanned by the MMS service under direction from the WordPress plugin. This off-loads the scanning process to specialised software which aims to minimise the loading on the WordPress server while scans are in progress.</p>
<p>There are three types of scan that can be performed;</p>
<ul>
<li>
<p>An &#8220;update&#8221;, which literally only looks at entries with changed sitemap timestamps<br />
(this is very quick and great for typo&#8217;s and any changes that only affect a single page)</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>A &#8220;synchronise&#8221;, typically this will scan every asset on the WordPress site and compare a checksum of each asset against it&#8217;s database to see if it&#8217;s changed since the last scan. Any changes are then transferred to the connected Git repository.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>A &#8220;Git verification&#8221;, this is like a &#8220;synchronise&#8221;, but also scans the Git repository for assets that are no longer referenced by the site (and removes them).</p>
</li>
</ul>
<p>As the site is scanned &#8220;from the outside&#8221; there should be no risk of the plugins actions exposing any data that isn&#8217;t already public. By the same token the external service has no ability to modify WordPress so the security footprint of the plugin is tiny.</p>
<h3>Feature bullet points</h3>
<ul>
<li>The plugin provides a way to produce a static copy of your website in a git repository</li>
<li>The result is compatible with both Github pages and CloudFlare pages for automatic publication</li>
<li>Multiple profiles are supported for (A+B_&#8230;) testing</li>
<li>Various scan rates are supported from one page per 5s to 7 cores flat out</li>
<li>Scheduled updates are supported and automated scanning</li>
<li>Currently &#8220;Gitlab&#8221; is supported with plans for GitHub and on-prem Gitlab</li>
<li>Support push services (WebPushr) to automatically notify subscribers on scan completion</li>
<li>Issue tracker for each profile to diagnose problems
<ul>
<li>Handles current and historical issues</li>
<li>Ability to acknowlede or delete issues when resolved</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>GUI access to the internal asset database
<ul>
<li>Search as you type filtering</li>
<li>Pinning (force assets to be scanned regardless of perceived change)</li>
<li>Selective / manual queueing of assets for testing</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>Ability to include manual / static assets in the scan (in the WP tree but unmanaged by WP)</li>
<li>Ability to exclude specific files and folders</li>
<li>Setup Wizard is included for a guided profile creation</li>
</ul>
<h3>The Technology</h3>
</p>
<ul>
<li>The Plugin presents as a WordPress Admin / plugin page</li>
<li>Backend connections are made over websockets using PKI</li>
<li>The crawler respects Robots.txt, (make sure the &#8220;MMSbot&#8221; agent is allowed on your site)</li>
<li>MMS Javascript runs in an isolated module and CSS &#8220;plays nice&#8221; with WordPress</li>
<li>Global CSS and theming is partitioned and user editable (if you feel the need &#8230;)</li>
<li>All of the front-end JS code and PHP is either GPL2 or MIT licensed</li>
<li>Backend-code is all based on the Orbit Framework (the framework and DB are all MIT licensed)</li>
<li>Orbit is a &#8216;real time&#8217; framework, so the admin panel is 100% reactive.
<ul>
<li>Progress bar updates are typically &#8220;per percent&#8221; granularity</li>
<li>All statuses, totals, etc, are updated as they happen</li>
<li>Unless you&#8217;ve hit a bug, there is no mileage in reloading the MMS plugin page</li>
<li>If you change your license information, it will change in real-time</li>
<li>If the crawler allocated to your site changes (perhaps due to a license upgrade) then the<br />
appropriate version of the crawler UI will be uploaded &#8220;into&#8221; the page from the new<br />
crawler.</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>


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