3154f54f79e64a6f96fb28c6c9abc09fQ: Hi Patrick, super excited to SimplyStatic on AS!!!
I'm looking at the full stack for unlimited sites and possibly SimplyCDN. My main use case is using WP Multisite only for clients to update content via ACF custom post/fields (ie. the backed) on something like manage.mycompany.com. Once they have their content updated in ACF they would publish to their domain (save in an ACF field with any other info needed).
1) Is this use case possible?
2) Is it possible to setup a "Button" to have the client "Publish" the site from the multisite to the static site (separate servers/sites of course)? What would that look like, what are the options with or without SimplyCDN?
3) Would it be possible to have 2 Buttons (actions) for a client to publish to a) a static staging site or b) the static production site?
4) For automation what are the minimum site of tools/services needed (ie. to we have to use something like Zapier?
Thanks and looking forward to going "Static"!
Patrick_SimplyStatic
Jun 27, 2024A: Happy to help! 🙂
1) Yeah, that's perfectly fine!
I'm not a huge fan of multisite (so I would opt for individual websites), but we support both scenarios.
I would probably look more into one of the multi-tenant (Wildcloud, Gridpane..) offerings for that (Okay, it depends on how far you want to go with your idea 😅)
You can even modify the domain with a little filter (to map with your ACF field).
2) Yes, it's already working this way 🙂
Well, SimplyCDN is just one of the deployment options (and probably the simplest one).
With Simply CDN, all you need is a security token (which you get once you set up the project in the dashboard), while others may involve more steps (like GitHub as a middleman for Cloudflare Pages, for example).
3) Yeah, you can filter the options configured in Simply Static - this way, you could have a second set of options (that contains the deployment to a staging environment) and offer a button (or select menu) to toggle between both.
However, before reinventing the wheel here, some of the static hosting providers have already offered this - Netlify and Cloudflare Pages, for example, offer "artifacts" (which is a temporary preview of the static site before pushing live) - maybe it's easier to work with that one?
4) Zapier is optional, but I would almost recommend it for your scenario.
Way less hassle, and you have a simple overview of all the projects' automation in one place (which makes debugging and monitoring a lot easier!
Thanks for the quick response!!
Regarding WP Multisite, the 3 main objections are Security, Speed and Scalability. With SimplyStatic all 3 are addressed and the MS instance becomes a staging instance behind a login (auth). For my eCom and dynamic sites I would use standalone.
A couple follow-up questions if you don't mind :)
1) To clarify my previous use case, is there a way for an end user (non-admin) to trigger an export (or push) of a static site based on a "button" that is not in the SimplyStatic UI? I would like the end user to be able to make changes (mostly in ACF) and then publish (or push) the site to the production domain WITHOUT having access to the SS admin UI. I see you have action/hooks and WPCLI, would those allow for this use case?
2) Is there a way to programmatically monitor the progress of an export so i can take action for instance, notify the end user via email or UI or email admin if anything fails? Do you have plans to enhance or extend the programmatic interfaces such as WebHooks?
3) I know this deal is SimplyStatic and not SimplyCDN however I am interested in that service and I would like to keep it Simple :) and skip GitHub. If we need storage above the higher plan (30GB) is that available incrementally?
Thanks!!
Verified purchaser
> To clarify my previous use case, is there a way for an end user (non-admin) to trigger an export (or push) of a static site based on a "button" that is not in the SimplyStatic UI? I would like the end user to be able to make changes (mostly in ACF) and then publish (or push) the site to the production domain WITHOUT having access to the SS admin UI. I see you have action/hooks and WPCLI, would those allow for this use case?
You could easily add a button yourself (maybe in the top admin bar?) to handle that - on click, all you need to run is:
Simply_Static\Plugin::instance()->run_static_export( $blog_id );
> Is there a way to programmatically monitor the progress of an export so i can take action for instance, notify the end user via email or UI or email admin if anything fails? Do you have plans to enhance or extend the programmatic interfaces such as WebHooks?
Yeah, you can fetch the log (including the current step, progress, and so on) as part of the options array:
$options = get_option('simply-static'); // dump and you get all the values.
> I know this deal is SimplyStatic and not SimplyCDN however I am interested in that service and I would like to keep it Simple :) and skip GitHub. If we need storage above the higher plan (30GB) is that available incrementally?
Yes, we offer plan upgrades (especially storage-related once) all the way to to 500 GB.