|
|
|
@ -44,3 +44,98 @@ to *save* something. With Django CMS Blog, you have the standard
|
|
|
|
|
have to wait seconds. Depending on my distance to our blog this might |
|
|
|
|
take 1 second (Europe) or about 5 seconds (South Korea). While this |
|
|
|
|
does not sound like much, it **feels** very long. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
While google apps (which we don't use for our blog) |
|
|
|
|
like google drive (which has other issues as well) |
|
|
|
|
take a different approach in *autosaving*, this also blocks if you |
|
|
|
|
have a weak network link. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
While it is just a few seconds, it is a huge difference between just |
|
|
|
|
being able to write in [emacs](https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/) |
|
|
|
|
(yes I was converted from vim) versus writing in a browser, waiting |
|
|
|
|
for the website to return. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
### Reducing latency |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
While editing with "high" latency is a problem of the writer, latency |
|
|
|
|
while loading the result is a metric that directly affects the readers |
|
|
|
|
*feeling* about a website. If it takes too long to a website, you, |
|
|
|
|
dear reader, are about to leave this website very fast. Even if I |
|
|
|
|
write the greatest and best content, you won't like it. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
So by switching to a static CMS, the dynamic processing time is |
|
|
|
|
removed and pages can load as fast as the round trip time (RTT) |
|
|
|
|
between the web server and you. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
### Reducing the inhibition threshold for writing blog articles |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Let's come to the third and maybe most important point: reducing the |
|
|
|
|
inhibition threshold for writing blog articles. Let's put some |
|
|
|
|
background into this: we are a small, Swiss based hosting company |
|
|
|
|
loving open source. However, the emphasises is on **small**. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
So we cannot (nor do we want to ) afford huge marketing / adwork / paid |
|
|
|
|
advertisements. But our strategy is to **do good and talk about it**. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
However if the barrier for writing and publishing is high, we won't |
|
|
|
|
write much about the things we do. And I think with a static CMS, |
|
|
|
|
geeks (like me) are having a much easier time to actually write a blog |
|
|
|
|
entry. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
## How to do it |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Now let's have a look on how to sneak in a static CMS into an existing |
|
|
|
|
company website. [ungleich.ch](https://ungleich.ch) is powered |
|
|
|
|
by our [Django CMS](https://www.django-cms.org) |
|
|
|
|
based CMS (full [source code is |
|
|
|
|
online](https://code.ungleich.ch/ungleich-public/dynamicweb/)). |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
The Django instance is running behind nginx, which allows us to proxy |
|
|
|
|
different parts of the website to different backends and to serve |
|
|
|
|
static assets directly from the filesystem. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
On the other hand we have a static web server named |
|
|
|
|
*staticweb.ungleich.ch* that hosts various static pages. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
The existing URLs of ungleich.ch should all stay as they are without |
|
|
|
|
any conflict. For this reason the new static cms is placed at |
|
|
|
|
**/u/**. The static pages are generated on a client machine and are |
|
|
|
|
uploaded using the following Makefile snippet: |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
``` |
|
|
|
|
BUILDDIR=../ungleich-staticcms-build |
|
|
|
|
DESTINATION=ungleichstatic@staticweb.ungleich.ch:/home/services/www/ungleichstatic/staticcms.ungleich.ch/www/ |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
all: publish |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
publish: build permissions |
|
|
|
|
rsync -av $(BUILDDIR)/ $(DESTINATION) |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
permissions: build |
|
|
|
|
find $(BUILDDIR) -type f -exec chmod 0644 {} \; |
|
|
|
|
find $(BUILDDIR) -type d -exec chmod 0755 {} \; |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
build: |
|
|
|
|
lektor build -O $(BUILDDIR) |
|
|
|
|
``` |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
The last step to sneak in the CMS was to modify the nginx |
|
|
|
|
configuration of ungleich.ch with the following snippet: |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
``` |
|
|
|
|
location /u/ { |
|
|
|
|
proxy_pass https://staticcms.ungleich.ch; |
|
|
|
|
} |
|
|
|
|
``` |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
## What's next? |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
As you can see in this post, the design does not fully (*cough*) fit |
|
|
|
|
the regular design of ungleich.ch. However Lektor uses jinja2, which |
|
|
|
|
is very similar to what we already use in the |
|
|
|
|
[existing dynamicweb |
|
|
|
|
project](https://code.ungleich.ch/ungleich-public/dynamicweb/). |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
If you want to join the discussion about this, I invite you to our |
|
|
|
|
open chat on [chat.ungleich.ch](https://chat.ungleich.ch). |
|
|
|
|