Update your static site

What you need: Simply Static Pro

After your first full push, you rarely need to push the whole site again just to publish a small change. Simply Static Pro gives you three faster ways to update a site you've already published:

  • Changes Only, which pushes just the pages and files that changed.
  • Single Push, which pushes one page or post straight from the editor.
  • Builds, which push or remove a saved, reusable set of pages and files.

(If you've used Simply Static for a while, these are the features previously called incremental, single, and build exports.)

You turn Single Push and Builds on under Simply Static > Workflow, and you run your updates from the main Push screen, the post editor, or the Builds screen.

Push only what changed (Changes Only)

On the main Push screen, the dropdown at the top of the panel lets you choose what to push. Set it to Changes Only to push only the content that changed since your last push, rather than the full site. Simply Static keeps track of pending changes and shows a note such as "You have 1 unpushed changes" so you always know when there's something to publish.

This is the fastest way to keep a larger site current, because it skips everything that hasn't changed.

How it works: Simply Static stores a hash representing each page's content and compares those hashes on the next push. It still crawls your pages and files to make the comparison, but it only performs follow-up work for items that actually changed.

Single Push

Single Push lets you publish an individual page or post to your static site right from the editor, without running a full push. When it's enabled, a Push button appears in the editor toolbar. Click it to push just the page you're working on, along with any related pages you've chosen to refresh.

You configure Single Push under Simply Static > Workflow:

  • Use Single Push? turns the feature on.
  • Use Auto Push? runs a Single Push automatically whenever a post or page is updated or published, so you don't have to click anything.
  • Pages to Update lets you pick which pages or files should be refreshed alongside the one you edited, for example, your homepage.
  • Taxonomy Archives lets you choose which archives to refresh, such as Categories and Tags.
  • Update archives, Update pagination, and Update XML sitemap. Refresh your archive URLs, paginated URLs, and XML sitemap on each Single Push.

Choosing the right combination here means a single edit can also update the overview pages, archives, and sitemap entries that point to it, so everything stays in sync.

Builds

A build is a saved, reusable set of URLs, files, and directories that you can push or remove from your static site with one click. Builds are great for repeatable updates, such as publishing a specific set of pages or clearing out a set of files.

First, enable the feature by turning on "Enable Builds" under Simply Static > Workflow (as shown in the screenshot above).

Then go to Simply Static > Builds to create and manage your builds.

When adding a build, you can set:

  • Name: a label for the build.
  • Parent term: assign a parent to create a hierarchy of builds.
  • URLs: the URLs to push or delete, one per line.
  • Files and Directories: absolute paths to push or delete, one per line. A BETA wildcard option lets you match many pages at once, for example, http://localhost:10025/simple-* .
  • Push Assets: also push the CSS, JS, and images found on the page.

Click Add New Build to save it. Each saved build appears in the list on the right with two actions: Push Static publishes that build to your static site, and Delete Static removes those items from your static site.

Watching progress

However you update your site, you can follow what's happening in real time under Simply Static > Activity Log, the same place you'd watch a full push. The log shows each step and a final "Done!" line when the update finishes.

Which option should I use?

  • Changes Only: You've edited several things and want to publish all changes at once.
  • Single Push: You're working on one page or post and want it live right away.
  • Builds: you have a defined set of pages or files you push (or remove) regularly.