CategoryStatic Generators

September 23, 2020 — In this article, Bryan Robinson explores how to take a humble HTML page and make its content editable in a CMS with no frameworks and no client-side JavaScript. Read more…

August 24, 2020 — Ever wanted to have a comments section for your blog, but were overwhelmed by the high cost and maintenance solutions? Firebase can be your savior. In this guide, we’ll learn how to add a comments section to your blog with Firebase, while learning the basics of Firebase on the way. Read more…

July 6, 2020 — Gatsby is a modern static-site generator that has revamped the way static websites are being built. It incorporates React, Node.js, and GraphQL to create stunning and blazing-fast websites. In this post, we will discuss Gatsby plugins and develop our own comment plugin. Read more…

July 2, 2020 — Statically generated sites or pre-rendering and server-side rendered applications are two modern ways to build front-end applications using JavaScript frameworks. These two modes, yet different, are often mixed up as the same thing and in this tutorial, we’re going to learn about the differences between them. Read more…

April 6, 2020 — Writing is a crucial skill every software developer should cultivate. Creating and hosting a technical blog provides an opportunity to do just that. Let’s take a look at how to deploy a blog for free and with minimal effort using Hugo and Firebase. Read more…

February 4, 2020 — In this post, we’ll set up a demo site and tutorial for headless WordPress, including a starter template! We’ll use the WordPress dashboard for rich content editing, while migrating the front-end architecture to the JAMstack to benefit from better security, performance, and reliability. We’ll do this by setting up a Vue application with Nuxt, pulling in the posts from our application via the WordPress API. Read more…

January 28, 2020 — WordPress adoption is massive. So why would a WordPress site consider moving to JAMstack? In this technical case study, Sarah Drasner will cover what an actual WordPress migration looks like, using Smashing Magazine itself! She’ll talk through the gains and losses, the things she wishes she knew earlier, and what she was surprised by. Let’s dig in! Read more…

May 22, 2019 — WordPress is a fantastic CMS that powers a big chunk of websites out there, which all have different features. As a result, it has a pretty robust architecture that can feel a bit too complex to run a simple blog. In this article, Christopher Kirk-Nielsen will go over how he made the transition from WordPress to a specific static site generator named Hugo. Let’s have a look at how Hugo can help us create a blog that is simple and fast! Read more…

March 13, 2018 — Even if you don’t use any client-side JavaScript at all to build a site, it doesn’t mean you have to give up on the idea of building with components. Learn how to build a static site with the help of an HTML preprocessor. In this article, Chris Coyier will take a walk through a site he built recently using this technique. He used CodePen Projects to build it, which offers Nunjucks as a preprocessor, which was perfectly up for the job. Read more…

April 21, 2017 — The beauty of Jekyll is in its simplicity. While WordPress can match many of the features of Jekyll, it often comes at the cost of complexity through extra plugins or infrastructure. In this article, Mike Neumegen will take on the role of a web developer building a website for a fictional law firm. WordPress is an obvious choice for a website like this, but is it the only tool we should consider? Let’s look at a completely different way of building a website, using Jekyll. Read more…