Building a static Manila site in 2019

[scripting]

I'm doing a restoration of the XML-RPC website along with releasing the new JavaScript implementation. I want to get a final clean rendering of the 1998 Manila site, xmlRpc.root.

I have Manila running in the OPML Editor.

I tried writing a script to do the static site build, but I don't have good example code. It would be ideal to just run a script and have a folder of static files appear.

I also tried to get the Admin site to show up. The web server is running on port 5337. I tried this URL:

http://127.0.0.1:5337/admin/ or

http://127.0.0.1:5337/admin/index.wsf

But none produce the admin website.

It's been really interesting, just put in about an hour, and got pretty far.

I've uploaded xmlRpc.root for anyone to have a go at this.

[kochwilkes]

I am running a server which has Manila serving websites (I used one of the websites to teach a class this fall). I was able to load the xmlRpc.root file into Frontier. But when I tried to change the site address to my server, I got an error.

I would really like to solve the static site conversion. I have many photo sites on this server and would like to move them to a static server so if this server dies, I can still have those sites.

I got it to come up somewhat:

http://course.wilkes.edu/xmlrpc/

with this error:

[Macro error: Can’t call the script because the name “dwWidgetsSuite” hasn’t been defined.]

I am running on a 2.66 GHz Quad-core Intel Xenon with 8 Gb of ram. I have switched the hard drives to SSD in the hopes the server will last longer. It's running Mac OSX 10.6.8 which is the last OS that Frontier will run in.

[kochwilkes]

PS -

My admin site comes up on

http://127.0.0.1:5336/

not what you had on github:

http://127.0.0.1:5337/admin/

[scripting]

Thanks for posting this here John.

I'm sure we'll figure this out. Highly motivated. ;-)

[scripting]

BTW, I found dwWidgetsSuite on my local disk and have attached it to this message. Not much in it, but if you install it may get rid of the error message.

dwWidgetsSuite.zip

[scripting]

Another note. I remembered a while back getting Manila to run in the OPML Editor, so I know it can be done. I tried following Jake Savin's instructions, but didn't get a good result.

[scripting]

I posted a note on the Frontier-user list, in the thread you started @kochwilkes in 2014.

https://groups.google.com/forum/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer#!msg/frontier-user/m9wdhmLRii8/nwUU7JRCCwAJ

I tried, per Ted's clue, to go to this URL.

http://127.0.0.1:5337/manilaadmin/

And the server responded. But none the links across the top of the page work, and I still have no idea how to get to the Manila app page.

Here's a screen shot.

[scripting]

Continuing, per your post in 2015 @kochwilkes -- if I entered the URLs from the top of the page by hand, they work. So I went to the Tools page figuring I'd see a way to get to the Manila site page, but no such luck.

http://127.0.0.1:5337/manilaadmin/tools

Here's a screen shot of the page.

[kochwilkes]

Made progress today. I followed the general instructions in a manual "Manila User's Guide" that I think was written by Brent Simmons. I went to a course he ran in March 24, 2004.
Basically, the server manager must enable static rendering for the whole server.

http://127.0.0.1:5336/settings

Click on "Static Files"

Check this box to enable static rendering.

File System rendering allows rendered pages to be written to disk or a shared volume.
Check this box to enable file system based static rendering.
Folder for static rendering:
URL for static rendering:

FTP rendering allows rendered pages to be sent to an FTP server.
Check this box to enable FTP based static rendering.

Then in the site's Prefs section is a link called Rendering. This page allows you to say "Yes" to enable static rendering. Then you go to the site's Admin link and there is a button to render the whole site. The top item is: Static Rendering: click the Render this Site button. Shows the URL of your static site. Brings up a confirmation page. Click to Render. Brent's comment was that the page will not come back until the whole site is rendered.

I was able to render a very simple 5 page site and get it to show up statically. However, I had to play around with the two settings of the folder to download into and the URL of the static site.

What I am worried about now is how the links will render. When I mounted Dave's xmlrpc root, if you look at the home page, the links in the nav bar are not correct.

http://course.wilkes.edu/xmlrpc

notice Home is "course.wilkes.edu" and Spec is "course.wilkes.edu/spec" It's leaving out the "xmlrpc" in each link. I don't know what will happen if I try to render it with the links that way.

[kochwilkes]

Also, several years ago, I tried to have OPML serve Manila pages on a newer Mac. I got it to work, but I had to bring in someone to patch things in the system to get port 80, etc. to work the right way with Manila. :(

[scripting]

I would like to figure out how to do that too. Getting it to respond on port 80 is something I can figure out, but I don't need that for what I want to do. I can run it on another port.

[scripting]

@kochwilkes -- I was able to view the xmlRpc site on your server.

I would consider it a big success if I got that far, here. Congratulations. ;-)

I have another approach in mind. I might write a script outside of Manila that renders the pages with their content but not with the original template.

I did something like that for a JS-based site I did a few years back. The code that rendered the site broke, and rather than trying to resurrect it, I just wrote a one-off script to render the site in a simple easier-to-read way. It ended up taking a lot less time than rebooting its CMS would have taken.