Static Websites with IndieWeb Dynamism

Static Websites with IndieWeb Dynamism was a session at IndieWeb Summit 2019.

Video: ▶️48:46s

Notes archived from: https://etherpad.indieweb.org/staticdynamic

IndieWeb Summit 2019
Session: Static Websites with IndieWeb Dynamism
When: 2019-06-29 15:15

Participants

Dave Peck (davepeck.org) (facilitator)
Tom Brown
John Karabaic (jk)
Cheryl Crowe
David Bryant (orangemoose.com)
Jordan Brady (mjordan.codes)
fluffy
Flaki (flak.is)
Jared White (https://jaredwhite.com)
Lillian Karabaic (anomalily.net)
Greg McVerry
Tomas Quinones (adventuring.bike)
Ben Turner
Jeff Noh

Notes

Setting the agenda: Dave's vision for the conversaion

Dave has a static website made with jekyll
(A static website is one where the HTML exists as files on the website, generated ahead of time. A dynamic website has its HTML generated from a program at the time you browse to it.)

SITE ----------> HTML -------------> Netlify, github pages, AWS S3 + Cloudfront, FTP, sometimes assisted by a Content Distribution Network, which puts the HTML on servers around the world closer to where people's web browsers are

        static 
        generator
        like
        jekyll
        hugo
        gatsby

This is *somewhat* incompatible with the IndieWeb view of the world

Static websites can't receive the dynamic requests that the IndieWeb needs for the social networks aspects of the IndieWeb

If your website changes because it receives a WebMention, then it's dynamic. Static websites can't do that.

microblog and other static site generators implement IndieWeb protocols on top of them, so that when the static HTML is generated, it puts the IndieWeb stuff in the HTML

WebMention.io + webhooks can make changes to your static site in github or wherever whenever a webmention is make

WebMention.js -> https://github.com/PlaidWeb/Publ-templates-beesbuzz.biz/blob/master/static/webmention.js Jekyll plugin for working with WebMention.io

One of the complications is that as your static site gets built, it's pulling data from Webmention.io to add content to the website. That can make building your site take a long time without optimizations

Discussion about ownership of your data. Some aspects

Can I move it to another provider?
Can I delete it and know it stays deleted?
Do I have the copyright?

Discussion about WebSub & WebMention

Pushl http://github.com/PlaidWeb/Pushl

Webmention is a way to tell a site you linked to that you linked to it

WebSub is a kind of feed where you get a notification of new content, like a push notification on your mobile device

There's a list of readers and other software that supports Websub

https://beesbuzz.biz/blog/8139-Some-WebSub-Atom-observations

Static site

OwnYourGram (instagram)
OwnYourSwarm (4square)
PESOS (Publish Elsewhere, Syndicate to your Own Site https://indieweb.org/PESOS)

Gatsby has Disqus, a comment engine that requires registration but allows authentication via FB and other sites)

discussion about whether IndieWeb needs a friendly Disqus replacement

Client-side JavaScript to pull data out, no other good mechanism for doing so

to clarify, it's client-side JS to read/publish comments, there is also a separate exporter mechanism on the admin API (although I haven't looked into it)

(2 minutes later) the exporter is documented at https://help.disqus.com/articles/1717164-comments-export

Audio & Video

gitlfs + github
gitlfs is a filesystem that works with git for storing large binary files, which git isn't good at doing on its own
gitlfs with S3 backing store, all hosted thru a docker image: https://github.com/jasonwhite/rudolfs

Questions about SEO What it

"What the IndieWeb needs is more listicles" -- Dave

2019/staticdynamic

Static Websites with IndieWeb Dynamism

Participants

Notes

See Also