PHP to Static HTML On The Fly

adminMarch 24, 2023

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YOU ARE READING: PHP to Static HTML On The Fly AT Vccidata_En

Data-driven websites are a bomb in my not-so-humble opinion. The ability to funnel information through a narrow passage and display that information in a variety of ways is without a doubt amazing. Everything can be manipulated, changed, structured, added, removed and decided before it even gets on the screen. Systems like WordPress, Joomla, Drupal have had their day in the sun. Even more advanced, minimalist UCGm (User Generated Content Management) systems are on the horizon that will have us programmers and schoolboys swooning. Older people like me who worship L,M,W-AMP need to hone their skills and keep up with the wondrous changes taking place in the digital universe with the marathon.

Recently I was confronted with a serious problem for a client’s website where -due to their server setup- and limited ability to be noticed by the Big3 searches. With the panda/penguin frequency and changes for the social search “YingBook” {yahoo, bing, facebook}, the page actually flipped. The problem was: your pages were ignored or the database went offline because the 128 limit was exceeded. Even after increasing to 256, the site was still at a snail’s pace. Not to the point of tears she asked me why she couldn’t just create static pages like she used to {html4} with the current CMS platform.

Reading: How to create a static website in php

My explanation was nothing short of a technical abundance of which she was unaware was. Finally I said to her, “We can set up a system to render all your data-based pages into static HTML that you can edit on the fly. Long story short, as a marketing “belt” of sorts, she’s now working with me to develop a strategy to offer such a program to the general population – mainly for mobile/wireless devices like iPad, Android, maybe even SUR.

PHP to Static HTML works quickly and effectively to take the information and create fully-functional, SEO-friendly pages without the limitations of included headers or slugs often associated with CMS programming are. It can even contain breadcrumbs or anything else that fits into a traditional web page. I first used this approach to rebuild RSS feeds whenever pages were changed/updated, created or deleted from the system. A very efficient, lightweight measure that really improves visibility while providing a way out of the data doldrums and easy enough to use for inexperienced designers or non-technical people.

PHP > HTML

Collect data from database
Retrieve static or template elements
Parse PHP to HTML
Reload sitemap/RSS

Database Checkpoint – Update or Create?

Simple and straightforward. Get the post title etc. Do the error checking e.g. B. empty, too short or too long. Apply the errors for any additional elements like photo, video or audio formats (extensions), content word count, etc. Once done, we’ll run through two options. Does this title exist? If so, update that author’s record, save the old page in a zip file, unlink the old page, create a new page, and reload the RSS feed. Otherwise, add the new record to the database, create a new page, and reload the feed.

Static page creation

This can often be done with the Get_File_Contents function, the elements captures new information to the static page from an existing template and APPEND. But I find this can be a tedious job as it requires breaking apart the template and recreating the elements line by line. So, to speed up the process, I’ll start with a completely new page. In doing so, I create new headers and metas, and then transpose the entire content of the page. This allows for MASSIVE flexibility in what items are displayed. As a big fan of jQuery’s .load(‘page.html’) function, the elements needed to perform certain functions are already present outside of the page, reducing digital clutter.

Using this function method, we simply rebuild a typical HTML page and make sure to include all header, meta, and associated scripts such as CSS and JavaScript. Notice that we use a write (w) command instead of the append (a) command. This is important, otherwise nothing will be written to the new page. Again, if you have a template, you can use appending to add the entire CONTENT ELEMENTS, being sure to close before closing or moving the file.

Now, let’s say for example you or the author want to back up the OLD file before creating a new one. You would create a .zip, .gz, or .tar file, insert the old file, and then unlink the old file before creating the new one. And again, that’s me, very basic, methodical – almost by necessity – when it comes to programming. I get annoyed by bugs or bugs, so take a very mechanical/robotic approach to features like this. {A most common mistake, believe it or not, is a missing semicolon or curly brace that would mock me like digital surgery most of the day

The sky’s the limit from here.Add any element you prefer, be it traditional html4, xml, html5, etc. Write $handlehtml and $loadhtml elements in the file. Do not forget this, otherwise the system will throw an error. Once the file is complete, reload the RSS feed/sitemap file. This is very important for Big3, which picks up the fresh, new page – as an updated version – or brand new version – when the feed reloads (usually every 20 minutes). This increases the chances of being indexed quickly, and when the spider comes crawling it will find that clean link and new HTML page in perfect print.