Generate Static HTML Website Using Ruby on Rails

1 static_rails.rb

# config/environments/static.rb

require File.expand_path('../development', __FILE__)

# environment for serving static pages like error pages to upload to S3
MyApp::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

2 static.rake

wget_cmd = "wget -mnH --no-parent -e robots=off --adjust-extension --convert-links"

# 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_cmd} 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_cmd} 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

end

3 database.yml

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

static:
  <<: *development