Generate Static HTML Website Using Ruby on Rails

.gitignore

# Ignore static version of the site (used to upload error pages to S3 for Heroku errors)
/out

database.yml

# config/database.yml
development: &development
  adapter: postgresql
  database: workherder_development
  host: localhost
  username: postgres
  password:

static:
  <<: *development

Gemfile

group :development do
  gem 'heel' # used to server the static site from the /out directory
end

generate_static_error_pages.rake

# lib/tasks/generate_static_error_pages.rb
# Original idea from http://blog.atlashost.eu/post/ruby-on-rails-a-static-site-generator.html
namespace :static do
  desc 'Generate static site in ./out/ directory'
  task :generate => [
    'assets:clean',
    'assets:precompile',
    :start_rails_server
  ] do
    Dir.mkdir 'out' unless File.exist? 'out'
    Dir.chdir 'out' do
      `wget -mnH http://localhost:3000/`
    end
    `rsync -ruv --exclude=.svn/ public/ out/`

    # stop the server when we're done
    Rake::Task['static:stop_rails_server'].reenable
    Rake::Task['static:stop_rails_server'].invoke 

    # don't need to keep assets since we deploy to Heroku
    Rake::Task['assets:clobber'].reenable
    Rake::Task['assets:clobber'].invoke 
  end

  desc 'only generates the static error page we need for Heroku'
  task :generate_error_page => [
    'assets:clean',
    'assets:precompile',
    :start_rails_server
  ] do
    Dir.mkdir 'out_error' unless File.exist? 'out_error'
    Dir.chdir 'out_error' do
      `wget -mnH http://localhost:3000/exceptions/400.html`
    end
    `rsync -ruv --exclude=.svn/ public/ out_error/`

    # stop the server when we're done
    Rake::Task['static:stop_rails_server'].reenable
    Rake::Task['static:stop_rails_server'].invoke 

    # don't need to keep assets since we deploy to Heroku
    Rake::Task['assets:clobber'].reenable
    Rake::Task['assets:clobber'].invoke 
  end

  desc 'Start a Rails server in the static Rails.env on port 3000'
  task :start_rails_server do
    `RAILS_ENV=static rails s -p 3000 -d`
  end

  desc 'Stop Rails server'
  task :stop_rails_server do
    `cat tmp/pids/server.pid | xargs -I {} kill {}`
  end

  desc 'Start a server using heel on port 8000 that will server our static site'
  task :start_static_server, :directory do |t, args|
    directory = args[:directory] || 'out'
    
    Dir.chdir directory do
      `heel --daemonize --port 8000`
    end
  end

  desc 'Stop the static server that is running using heel'
  task :stop_static_server do
    `heel --kill --port 8000`
  end
end

static.rb

# config/environments/static.rb
require File.expand_path('../development', __FILE__)
# environment for serving static pages like error pages to upload to S3
Workherder::Application.configure do
  config.serve_static_assets = true

  # Compress JavaScripts and CSS
  config.assets.compress = true

  # Don't fallback to assets pipeline if a precompiled asset is missed
  config.assets.compile = false

  # Generate digests for assets URLs
  config.assets.digest = true
end