Stunning progress you've made David. You should be very proud of yourself. His was very inspiring. And also made me laugh out loud a few times with some of the comments and rationale... I'm talking about things like "learning CSS was easier than learning Gutenberg" and the React being a mistake, and JS Devs trying to figure out how to output html Lol. Hearing you joke about these things shows you've moved on from all the Gutenberg trauma and can make light of it all now with it firmly in the rearview mirror. Looking forward to more videos!👏
Thank so much Paul. Not just for this, but for being a supportive friend who just gets the dilemmas. You may not realize this but you flipped things the most. I was using the HTLM module in Beaver Builder for lots of things and you said if doing that you dont really need Beaver Builder. I need to tighten things up and battle test it some more, but the nice response makes me want to do more content again.
Indeed it is a massive change. In some ways I started this with my Beaver Junction project. That got me thinking that I could manage code in small sections. Thanks so much for watching and commenting.
That is another excellent video, David. I appreciate your effort in creating this video. 🙏🏻 I don't mind paying you a fee if you were to start a detailed step-by-step course on how you converted an entire WP site to a static site. PS: And thanks for introducing WPCodebox. I've been using it daily ever since I got it through your link a few months ago.
Hi Melvin thank you so much. That is great to hear, I was wondering if it might be worth setting up some kind of life membership where I shared everything I did with on going tutorials. I think I would have to provide a version that did it all via the theme so folk did not have to use WP Code Box. It is just a thought. at this moment I have 5 projects running now to learn from so I don't think I will get anything done quickly.. I would like to get to the point where I know what I have is solid and faster then using a page builder.. Thank you again.
Loving this setup.I like how you think about the stack in terms of it being resiliant to unforseen changes. I also like how the entire github setup works and the fact you can end up having free hosting for clients. Moving site edits to you also opens up a wass horizon as well. All this is a real food for taught. Though at the moment manz of my clients really fo update the sites on their own. So will have to think of this. Love the classless (or low class component drive coding approach) too. I want more of this.
I really appreciate this comment. Thank you. Clients needing to change their own content is a real weakness in this. Presently, I would be the bottleneck in the situation where the client needed to quickly up date content for visitors. So far, for me that type of content has just been booking or calendar stuff which is done via a 3rd party. I thought I would end up limiting my type of work. Which was fine me me. I passed on a WP membership site that was broken, but luckily found out that it was only a directory and that updates were not often. Users struggled with the complexity and restriction of fields and some had to be banned for messing up the site (I think funky copy and paste text). Before going this route I would have looked to rethinking the fields and adding safeguards. After I just asked could they just not do it via Google docs or via a feedback overlay (Userback or Project Huddle). That was preferred. I am not done, but it has got me really thinking about where and when a client really needs a CMS. Anyway there still is a route either the Jamstack way or reverting some things and putting the WordPress site live. I think we are in the middle of quite a division of approaches. I think I will be some months learning from some new projects before I could come back with more detail, but wanted to see if there was any interest in this.
@@DavidWaumsley this video inspired me to show some of the things I keep thinking about in regards to approach we have with Builderius site builder. Specifically HTML first approach. You control all the html and css, so you build it all as if its a static html site, and then we simply pull dynamic data where we need it. This makes it really easy to create stuff using modern css and html approaches without the complexity of blocks and other simiar stuff. The entire thing becomes so much simpler. I want to try and make a video about this to communicate some of excitement I have about it. :)
@@thisweblabvideos That sounds fabulous. I will be really interested in that. I was always interesting in what you were doing with Builderius, but it was only today that I followed your TH-cam channel. I'm amazed this video has got good views. It looks totally mad from serious developers point of view, but I perhaps I'm not the only WordPress person who feels first they need to level their CSS and HTML skills first in familiar surrounding in bite sizes pieces. Still, even if I was a wiz kid with npm, right now I have a few jobs to do with 100's of WP pages and posts on the existing sites.
Thanks David, very interesting stuff - I too have looked at Astro - but I've not found the time to investigate fully yet! One question - how does this affect client editing, and client pushing updates ?
Nice to see you Dave. There's is no CMS with this WP approach so clients give me what needs to be updated. One advantage of Astro (and other SSG's) is that you can add editable areas (to their "front matter") and use Netlify's CMS option to give client access. Most JamStack CMSs are really expensive! I could talk about this a lot. It took me a long while to realize that a CMS was not what my clients actually wanted for the HTML type content. Actually, either they never used it or really got into it and started messing things up. I have had jobs where the original dev restricted what the client can edit (with ACF) and that client has come to me to get the restrictions removed. Much later after a proper chat with the person behind one of those those jobs it was not as I thought. The restriction were just too much, but they would rather someone else was altering the site for them. With new clients it is easier as over the build time we are working with shared Google docs so this is how they tell to make changes. For one site with many people needing to give feed back on what needs altering I am considering using UserBack or Project Huddle for it. Things like taking payment and bookings are all coming via other API so they have their own accounts to manage that. I can't do a full ecommerce site, because I don't have the skills to connect the Stripe API to the HTML, but it would be that way would go if needed.
Just to follow up - I could put my local site on to a server for clients and let them adjust this. I think the Simply Static Pro plugin would allow the client to push the static version to where it needs to be. I have not needed to do this as clients have been keen to just communicate with me. I think I would be back to square one if I did this. I would be dependent on a plugin (which recently has let me down) and fixed to WordPress. With the new sites I chose my tool - WP or Astro and should be able to swatch with the client not knowing or caring.
@@DavePerth Thanks. yeah all is good here . A bit more work than I would like but I am more excited to be doing it than I have for a while.. I got my Facebook hacked account and saw it as a good time to get off it.
Hi Steven, sorry I need to get this out as a blog post as I don't show everything I mention. I use Formspark which actually still is on a deal: www.dealify.com/formspark/
@@DavidWaumsley - I think a separate video on your full stack (and development environment) would be great. I'm using FluentCRM currently...so I can't go truly static...but I'm interested in how far I could push it..and see what my options are in a serverless model.
@@stevendavis7628 Ah yes I see what you are saying. I have a new client who relies on a CRM, but luckily it is 3rd party and so I will have to connect FormSpark to Zapier to his CRM. I don't know yet as I have not started that job.
Stunning progress you've made David. You should be very proud of yourself. His was very inspiring. And also made me laugh out loud a few times with some of the comments and rationale... I'm talking about things like "learning CSS was easier than learning Gutenberg" and the React being a mistake, and JS Devs trying to figure out how to output html Lol. Hearing you joke about these things shows you've moved on from all the Gutenberg trauma and can make light of it all now with it firmly in the rearview mirror. Looking forward to more videos!👏
Thank so much Paul. Not just for this, but for being a supportive friend who just gets the dilemmas. You may not realize this but you flipped things the most. I was using the HTLM module in Beaver Builder for lots of things and you said if doing that you dont really need Beaver Builder. I need to tighten things up and battle test it some more, but the nice response makes me want to do more content again.
Very interesting...I'm going to have to dig into this further. Big move from your Beaver builder stuff!
Indeed it is a massive change. In some ways I started this with my Beaver Junction project. That got me thinking that I could manage code in small sections. Thanks so much for watching and commenting.
That is another excellent video, David. I appreciate your effort in creating this video. 🙏🏻
I don't mind paying you a fee if you were to start a detailed step-by-step course on how you converted an entire WP site to a static site.
PS: And thanks for introducing WPCodebox. I've been using it daily ever since I got it through your link a few months ago.
Hi Melvin thank you so much. That is great to hear, I was wondering if it might be worth setting up some kind of life membership where I shared everything I did with on going tutorials.
I think I would have to provide a version that did it all via the theme so folk did not have to use WP Code Box. It is just a thought. at this moment I have 5 projects running now to learn from so I don't think I will get anything done quickly.. I would like to get to the point where I know what I have is solid and faster then using a page builder.. Thank you again.
Loving this setup.I like how you think about the stack in terms of it being resiliant to unforseen changes. I also like how the entire github setup works and the fact you can end up having free hosting for clients. Moving site edits to you also opens up a wass horizon as well. All this is a real food for taught. Though at the moment manz of my clients really fo update the sites on their own. So will have to think of this. Love the classless (or low class component drive coding approach) too.
I want more of this.
I really appreciate this comment. Thank you. Clients needing to change their own content is a real weakness in this. Presently, I would be the bottleneck in the situation where the client needed to quickly up date content for visitors. So far, for me that type of content has just been booking or calendar stuff which is done via a 3rd party.
I thought I would end up limiting my type of work. Which was fine me me. I passed on a WP membership site that was broken, but luckily found out that it was only a directory and that updates were not often.
Users struggled with the complexity and restriction of fields and some had to be banned for messing up the site (I think funky copy and paste text). Before going this route I would have looked to rethinking the fields and adding safeguards. After I just asked could they just not do it via Google docs or via a feedback overlay (Userback or Project Huddle). That was preferred.
I am not done, but it has got me really thinking about where and when a client really needs a CMS. Anyway there still is a route either the Jamstack way or reverting some things and putting the WordPress site live. I think we are in the middle of quite a division of approaches. I think I will be some months learning from some new projects before I could come back with more detail, but wanted to see if there was any interest in this.
@@DavidWaumsley this video inspired me to show some of the things I keep thinking about in regards to approach we have with Builderius site builder.
Specifically HTML first approach. You control all the html and css, so you build it all as if its a static html site, and then we simply pull dynamic data where we need it.
This makes it really easy to create stuff using modern css and html approaches without the complexity of blocks and other simiar stuff.
The entire thing becomes so much simpler. I want to try and make a video about this to communicate some of excitement I have about it. :)
@@thisweblabvideos That sounds fabulous. I will be really interested in that. I was always interesting in what you were doing with Builderius, but it was only today that I followed your TH-cam channel.
I'm amazed this video has got good views. It looks totally mad from serious developers point of view, but I perhaps I'm not the only WordPress person who feels first they need to level their CSS and HTML skills first in familiar surrounding in bite sizes pieces.
Still, even if I was a wiz kid with npm, right now I have a few jobs to do with 100's of WP pages and posts on the existing sites.
Thanks David, very interesting stuff - I too have looked at Astro - but I've not found the time to investigate fully yet! One question - how does this affect client editing, and client pushing updates ?
Nice to see you Dave. There's is no CMS with this WP approach so clients give me what needs to be updated. One advantage of Astro (and other SSG's) is that you can add editable areas (to their "front matter") and use Netlify's CMS option to give client access. Most JamStack CMSs are really expensive!
I could talk about this a lot. It took me a long while to realize that a CMS was not what my clients actually wanted for the HTML type content.
Actually, either they never used it or really got into it and started messing things up. I have had jobs where the original dev restricted what the client can edit (with ACF) and that client has come to me to get the restrictions removed. Much later after a proper chat with the person behind one of those those jobs it was not as I thought. The restriction were just too much, but they would rather someone else was altering the site for them.
With new clients it is easier as over the build time we are working with shared Google docs so this is how they tell to make changes. For one site with many people needing to give feed back on what needs altering I am considering using UserBack or Project Huddle for it.
Things like taking payment and bookings are all coming via other API so they have their own accounts to manage that.
I can't do a full ecommerce site, because I don't have the skills to connect the Stripe API to the HTML, but it would be that way would go if needed.
Just to follow up - I could put my local site on to a server for clients and let them adjust this. I think the Simply Static Pro plugin would allow the client to push the static version to where it needs to be.
I have not needed to do this as clients have been keen to just communicate with me. I think I would be back to square one if I did this. I would be dependent on a plugin (which recently has let me down) and fixed to WordPress. With the new sites I chose my tool - WP or Astro and should be able to swatch with the client not knowing or caring.
@@DavidWaumsley Thanks for the replies David - trust all is well with you?
@@DavePerth Thanks. yeah all is good here . A bit more work than I would like but I am more excited to be doing it than I have for a while..
I got my Facebook hacked account and saw it as a good time to get off it.
What do you do for backend database...email, forms processing...?
Hi Steven, sorry I need to get this out as a blog post as I don't show everything I mention. I use Formspark which actually still is on a deal: www.dealify.com/formspark/
Sorry, what do you mean by database? Local WP provide MySQL for WordPress.
@@DavidWaumsley - I think a separate video on your full stack (and development environment) would be great.
I'm using FluentCRM currently...so I can't go truly static...but I'm interested in how far I could push it..and see what my options are in a serverless model.
@@stevendavis7628 Ah yes I see what you are saying. I have a new client who relies on a CRM, but luckily it is 3rd party and so I will have to connect FormSpark to Zapier to his CRM. I don't know yet as I have not started that job.