Using WordPress to Generate Flat Files (Idle Words)#
09.08.2009
Using WordPress to Generate Flat Files
Some readers have emailed asking me for more specifics about how to run WordPress offline, like I suggested in my last post. So I spent a couple of hours struggling with it last night to get a sense of what it would take.
This is an almost useless and jargon-packed summary, but my hope is that some intrepid WP user may try following these steps and use them as a starting point for a proper HOWTO.
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If you want comments, you'll need to switch from whatever is built in to WordPress to an outside JavaScript-based service like disqus. Disqus can import your existing comments when you set it up. Disclaimer: I have never used this service and know nothing about it - there may be better alternatives.
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Set up WordPress on the machine where you want to do your writing and editing. The WP site has copious instructions for all kinds of installation scenarios.
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Configure WP to use 'fancy' permalinks - not the default, which uses query string parameters. Basically, if there's a question mark in the URL, you can't mirror the site. If you're on OS X, you will now have to struggle with mod_rewrite and .htaccess permissions for a while.
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Configure WP to allow robots access (otherwise wget will not work in the next step).
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Use wget to crawl your new blog and turn it into a bunch of static files:
wget --mirror -p --html-extension --convert-links http://your.local.url/
What this does is explained in detail here. I've left off some unnecessary flags. -
Set up apache on your blog server to serve static content from wherever you want your blog files to live.
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Now copy over the static files you created with wget to their new home on the remote machine using a secure transfer method like rsync or sftp.
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Laugh in the face of mankind / email me about why this didn't work.
Good luck, and please let me know if you are able to follow these steps and produce a more helpful HOWTO that I can link to.