CMS Made Simple Forums

well, this would be useful for including a static version of your site on a CD or something for offline reading.  but it would look really ugly if you had any dynamic content in the pages what-so-ever.

Hi.

In many cases, generating static pages would make a lot of sense. I hardly know a site which *needs* to be updated *pernanently". On most of my sites, updating once or twice a day would suffice. This could easily be done with a cron job. Orjust  writing the page whenever there is a change or content is added.

Static HTML is much much much faster (no database queries at all), puts *almost no load* on a server, and caching is a breeze.

So, as I see it, all installations which do NOT require *permanent* updating  would benfit a lot.

For example, I use IWEB's HYPERSEEK software for my directories. HYPERSEEK can be configured to generate static pages, so that only site search is dynamic (naturally). This does speed up the site enourmously. And I use a simple cron job to update the sites four times a day.

This is definitely a feature I would like to see in CMSMS.

Of course, there are things you cannot do with static pages, like random content on every pageview and things like that. But if that's not needed ...

Cheers,
Alex

But not every one has the option to set a cronjob on his host.

Have you made a look at pimenu 3.03 (not 3.04) ? There you will found an option to make your page/menu a little bit more static ...

My random thoughts on the topic...

Static HTML pages are definitely faster to serve. Consider that many folks running CMSes (as opposed to custom-programmed sites) are running on large shared hosting systems with hundreds if not thousands of sites on a single server. Dynamic and database-based code on such systems are often bogged down by the other processes running on those servers. Static HTML would be a real boon to these sites.

The XCart ecommerce system can generate a static version of an e-shopping site. Those portions that need to be dynamic -- cart and checkout processing -- remain PHP based. But the catalog can be generated as static HTML pages from the system's admin panel.

With the new events system in 1.0, an event could trigger the regeneration of the HTML pages. This would be great for those sites that are updated a couple of times a day (like with a news posting, etc.).

In sum, I'd love to see this feature in a future release.

Tim

Just my two cents, but I think that an option to export as html pages would be fantastic. Here are my selfish reasons:

1. html pages load faster (as noted above)... especially on a shared server.
2. a static version of the site gives clients a feeling of safety, because they understand a "backup" that can be served from any hosting environment. this actually allows me to move more people TO cmsms, because they understand that they can always EASILY migrate BACK to static html if they ever feel the need.
3. it's hard for static html files to "fry" in a way that scares clients. for example, the smallest bug in php, or in a stored database field, often results in an ugly error or an inability to update the site at all. this frightens clients because a solution is often not immediately forthcoming. certainly you can get an error in static html, but normally it's limited to a broken image or a broken link that can be easily troubleshot by someone with basic web familiarity.

[quote1. html pages load faster (as noted above)... especially on a shared server.
2. a static version of the site gives clients a feeling of safety, because they understand a "backup" that can be served from any hosting environment. this actually allows me to move more people TO cmsms, because they understand that they can always EASILY migrate BACK to static html if they ever feel the need.
3. it's hard for static html files to "fry" in a way that scares clients. for example, the smallest bug in php, or in a stored database field, often results in an ugly error or an inability to update the site at all. this frightens clients because a solution is often not immediately forthcoming. certainly you can get an error in static html, but normally it's limited to a broken image or a broken link that can be easily troubleshot by someone with basic web familiarity. [quote][/quote]

agree!

Hello,

in this thread http://forum.cmsmadesimple.org/index.ph ... 678.0.html I'm suggesting that CMSms *should* generate pages to just serve static files. The thread is more than one year old and the topic has evolved. Please have a look : you may see that the suggestion would include a "static export feature included for free", which could satisfy your wish.

PM