High Voltage: Building Static Sites with WordPress-Managed Content

We will explore strategies for using WordPress as a collaborative writing room, similar to proprietary alternatives like Prismic.io and Contentful. We will examine techniques for building static sites with Middleman using WordPress-managed content.

Transcript

3. …there was a time before WordPress
4. One file per page
5. Assemble pages by including common components
6. Mix in data from other sources
7. Emerging trends • DRY • Eliminate duplicate content • Separate concerns • Improve productivity
8. Thanks PHP
9. They matter too But what about the content authors?
11. Content is a first class citizen
12. Further separation of concerns • Users enter content using a GUI • Programmers create templates that utilize the user-entered content • Web pages generated on demand
13. Sounds simple?
14. It’s not • With (pretty much) any CMS: • Wrangling together templates and data is complicated • The process is demanding and involves needless work
16. Most CMS-based websites Writes Reads Expensive Moderate
18. Some CMS-based websites Writes Reads Cheap Moderate
19. Thanks caching!
20. “The stack” stacks up HTTP Accelerator (Varnish) Web Server (Apache) Application Server (WordPress/PHP) Database (MySQL) Object Cache (MemCached) File System
22. Too far?
23. Do you build a solution for your problem or do you fit your problem into a solution?
24. Build a solution • We have the tools: • Static site generators • Rapid application frameworks • APIs • CMSs / Writing rooms
25. Big problems Tiny solutions
27. Why static sites • Fast • Secure • Scalable • Simple themes and integrations • Own conventions, languages, and tools • Excellent version control story
28. The generators help! Build HTML JS SVG CSS GIF JPG PNG Source HTML COFFEE SVG TWIG ERB SCSS GIF JPG PNG JSON YAML MD
29. Productivity, performance, security, scalability 
 paid for with slow resource intensive build processes
30. The new reality Writes Reads Cheap Expensive
31. Requirements diminish Server/CDN File System
32. More hosting options open up • Shared hosting • VPS • GitHub Pages (https://pages.github.com/) • Dropbox (https://pages.github.com/) • Google Drive (https://www.google.com/drive/) • Amazon S3 (http://aws.amazon.com/s3/)
33. There are drawbacks • Particularly with the concept of keeping content in flat files • Hard to contribute (knowledge of Git) • Hard to collaborate
34. Writing rooms to the rescue • Contentful (https://www.contentful.com/) • Prismic.io (https://www.prismic.io/) • Pull in data through the API into a static build process
35. Focus Admin interface for content creation and collaboration
36. However… • Subscription services • Potential for vendor lock-in • Lack of mature, open source alternatives
37. WordPress as a pure CMS • WordPress can be used as an alternative to writing rooms like Prismic.io and Contentful • Content authors use WordPress to manage content and collaborate; not to build web sites • Content pulled out of WordPress and injected into static build process
38. WP REST API • Popular plugin that will be integrated into core • Provides an HTTP REST API • Extensive API for CRUD operations on comments, media, meta data, posts, taxonomies, and users • http://wp-api.org
39. Advanced Custom Fields Pro • Popular plugin that allows for rapid creation of custom fields • Supports many field types, including text, number, image, map, links, and post references • Rich ecosystem of extensions including repeaters • http://www.advancedcustomfields.com
40. WP REST API Custom Fields • Adds custom fields defined with ACF Pro to JSON output • Inserts an object into the meta key with all your fields • http://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-rest-api-custom-fields
41. Putting the backend together • A 15-minute REST server with multi-user support, roles and permissions, and an admin interface 1. Enable the aforementioned plugins 2. Setup friendly permalinks 3. Create custom post types if necessary 4. Setup custom fields if necessary 5. API accessible at /wp-json
43. Choosing a static site generator • Comes in pretty much any language: C, C++, Java, Go, Haskell, Erlang, JavaScript, Ruby, Python, PHP, etc. • Choose a language you a comfortable with and enjoy working with • Choose a system that is mature • Choose a system that lets you work with many different types of inputs, including remote content for maximum flexibility
44. Middleman Hand-crafted frontend development
 https://middlemanapp.com/
45. Key Features • HTML, Markdown, YAML, and JSON format • Templating language • Asset pipeline • Live reload • Development server • Common preprocessors and concat/minify out of the box
46. Useful Extensions • Deploy • Blog • Pagination • SVG Fallback • Full list: https://directory.middlemanapp.com/#/extensions/all
47. Directory Structure • Data • Lib • Source • Images • Javascripts • Layouts • Stylesheets • Pages, posts, etc
48. Source index.html.md /about Build Data /css /js /img layout.html.erb logo.svg all.scss _header.scss _footer.scss all.js menu.coffee feed.js _header.html.erb /layouts
49. Build index.html /about /css /js /img logo.svg all.css all.js logo.png logo@2x.png
50. Dynamic Files • Data is made available to our templates • Useful for creating menus, lists, directories, etc. • Pages can also be dynamically generated from data
51. sally.html roger.html sue.html steven.html lisa.html people build people.json data
52. Dynamic Pages In config.rb people.each do |person| proxy “people/#{person[‘name’]}.html”, “layout/person.html”, locals: { person: person } end
53. Data Source Library In lib/wordpress.rb class WordPress include HTTParty def initialize(uri) self.class.base_uri uri end def posts @posts ||= self.class.get(‘/posts?type=post’) end end
54. Dynamic Pages from Data Source In config.rb @wordpress = WordPress.new(“http://supersecret.dev/wp-json”) @wordpress.posts.each do |post| proxy “/blog/#{post[‘slug’]}/index.html”, “templates/post.html”, locals: { post: post } end
55. Expose Data Source to Templates In config.rb helpers do def wordpress @wordpress end end
56. Use Data Source in Templates In source/blog/index.html <% wordpress.posts.each do |post| %> <div> <h3><a href=“/blog/<%= post[‘slug’] %>/”><%= post[‘title’] %></a></h3> <div><%= post[‘excerpt’] %></div> </div> <% end %>
57. Nicer than this! <?php
 if (have_posts()) {
 while ( have_posts()) { 
 the_post();
 ?>
 <div>
 <h3><a href=“<?php the_permalink(); ?>”><?php the_title(); ?></a></h3>
 <div><?php the_excerpt(); ?></div>
 </div>
 <?php 
 }
 }
 ?>
63. There’s a plugin for that • Hookpress • Turns internal hooks into web hooks • Recompile your site when content is updated • https://wordpress.org/plugins/hookpress/