Move all public facing content to static site?

[GUI]

For api.data.gov, the public site is split between a static site and the web project. At this point, the only thing the web project is actually providing is the signup form and the contact form--everything else is coming from the static site. One of the main downsides of this split is a duplication in the stylesheet and themes between the two projects.

One solution might be to pull in the static site into the rails web app as a git submodule, so we could at least rely on most of the same resources (although the layout files would still be separate).

A better solution might be to move those last two pieces into the static site, and have them perform an ajax-ified signup process. Then at that point, the web project would only be providing public APIs for signing up or sending a contact message, as well as the web admin. Even if we end up introducing a more robust and dynamic user management section on the public site, (login, etc), I think that could still be tackled inside the static site if we build it out as an Ember (or equivalent) app.

[GUI]

We made this move a while ago with api.data.gov--it now performs all the signup/other dynamic bits via API calls to the web project. The api-umbrella-static-site template site used in default installs also takes this same approach.