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Publishing the Learning Lab

While the Learning Lab uses a WordPress environment to manage and update content, the publicly available site is a static version of the WordPress content. Here's how to produce this static version.

1. Export the site content to JSON

From the dashboard, select "Export JSON". Then click the blue button labelled "Export now".

2. Turn search engine visibility on

Turn search engine visibility on by selecting "Settings" and then "Reading". From there, uncheck the box labelled "Discourage search engines from indexing this site".

3. Extract the HTML content

Open the SiteSucker app. Paste https://learninglab.rmit.edu.au/documentation/ into the URL field and click the "Download" button. By default, the files will be extracted to a folder called learninglab.rmit.edu.aux.

The extraction process will take 10-15 minutes. Look out for errors, as these can alert you to broken links or missing files.

4. Run Python script

The Python script cleans, replaces, and updates content across the static site:

  • Copy the Python script, clean_static_pages.py, from the ll-python repo on GitHub to a folder of your choice on your computer.
  • Copy the folder learninglab.rmit.edu.aux to this same directory.
  • Open a terminal window, navigate to your folder (on Mac, right-click, New Terminal Tab at Folder), and then run the script:
    python3 clean_static_pages.py
  • By default, this will produce a folder called learning-lab-static. You can adjust the expected folder names by adding --input or --output options to the script:
    python3 clean_static_pages.py --input my-folder --output my-output-folder

The static site should now be able to be viewed through a localhost web server.
MAMP: Change 'Document root' to the learning-lab-static folder, hit Start and open http://localhost:8888/ in your browser.

  • Meta tags: Removes specific meta tags and comments generated by the AIOSEO plugin.
  • Styles: Removes certain CSS styles and links related to WordPress and plugins not in use.
  • Favicon: Updates the path to use the global RMIT favicon.
  • Page content: Replaces references to old URLs with the live URL (https://learninglab.rmit.edu.au/) and removes index.html from URLs.
  • 404: Moves and renames /redirect-404/ to 404.html, cleaning its content to remove any relative path prefixes.
  • Downloads: Deletes a specific file _downloads.html, created by SiteSucker.
  • Sitemap: Renames page_sitemap.xml to sitemap.xml and default-sitemap.xsl.xml to default-sitemap.xsl.
  • Robots: Alters robots.ssl.txt, disallowing certain directories and specifying the sitemap location.

5. Upload site

Once the static site has been tested and the QA process is complete, it can be uploaded to the live site via Sourcetree/Fork or a similar local app and Bitbucket. Information on how to do this is available on the Digital Learning wiki.

6. Turn search engine visibility off

Turn search engine visibility off by selecting "Settings" and then "Reading" form the dashboard. From there, check the box labelled "Discourage search engines from indexing this site".


Here are some links to files that need to be extracted. Having links to them here ensures that SiteSucker will grab them:


Keywords