Distan

Distan turns WordPress into a build environment for static HTML deliverables. You author in WordPress, then export clean, self-contained HTML that runs anywhere. No WordPress, no PHP, and no database are required on the production server. Unlike static export plugins that mirror a live WordPress site, Distan is built for the case where the HTML files themselves are the deliverable. WordPress stays on the developer's side and is never published. When an update is needed, you edit in WordPress, regenerate, and hand over the difference. This suits agencies that deliver HTML files rather than a CMS — for example recruitment sites placed under a subdirectory of an existing corporate site, where adding a WordPress install is not an option. What it does

• Generates every published page, the posts archive with pagination, category archives with pagination, and a 404 page.
• Rewrites internal links as document-relative paths, so the output can be opened directly and placed in any directory.
• Flattens WordPress paths: theme files move to assets/, uploads move to media/. The wp-content directory disappears from the deliverable.
• Cleans the HTML: removes the generator tag, REST API links, oEmbed, emoji scripts, speculative loading rules, and the development noindex.
• Keeps cache-busting query strings on assets, so file names stay stable and can be overwritten over FTP.
• Reports a diff after each run: which files were added, and which need to be removed from production.
• Audits links and reports any whose target was not generated.
• Downloads the result as a ZIP.

Requirements The only hard requirement is loopback HTTP (the site being able to request itself). No direct SQL, no exec(), no external binaries, no external APIs. It runs on Local, MAMP, XAMPP, DDEV, Docker, or shared hosting, and works offline. Not for every case Distan is not suitable when the client updates the site themselves, when forms, search, comments, or membership are required, or for sites of only a few pages.

1. Upload the plugin to wp-content/plugins/, or install the ZIP from Plugins → Add New → Upload.
2. Activate it.
3. Open the Distan menu, check the environment, set the public URL, and generate.

The output is written to wp-content/uploads/distan/dist/.

1.1.0

• Added: optional sitemap.xml generation. Built from the pages that were actually generated, using the production URL, in the standard format Google Search Console accepts. Author and date archives are never collected, so IDs like ?author=1 cannot leak into it.
• Added: sitemap exclusions by slug prefix (/private/ excludes everything under it) or substring (draft excludes any URL containing it), via a setting or the distan_sitemap_exclude filter.
• Added: optional minimal robots.txt (Allow: /, plus a Sitemap: line when the sitemap is enabled).
• The development-URL audit now also scans sitemap.xml and robots.txt, so a leftover development host in them is reported like anywhere else.
• The diff-based cleanup now keeps sitemap.xml, robots.txt and the Markdown files, so they are not removed on the next run.

1.0.0

• First stable release. Classic and block (FSE) themes are both supported and have been verified across the hard cases: internal links and multibyte slugs, JSON-LD and canonical/OGP, srcset and path flattening, CSS url() and webfonts, custom post types and fields, diff-based cleanup, Markdown export, hooks, and a safe uninstall that never touches the delivered files.

0.9.18

• Fixed: multibyte (e.g. Japanese) page slugs in internal links were corrupted (0x80-0x9F bytes turned into "_"), breaking the link. WordPress emits same-origin links as raw UTF-8; Distan now normalises every link path to a consistent percent-encoded form, so multibyte slugs survive intact in both the output filename and the rewritten link.
• Added: the generation report and the environment check now surface how many development-domain URLs remain in the output (e.g. in JSON-LD or canonical/OGP tags when the Production URL is unset), so a forgotten Production URL is caught before and after delivery.
• Fixed: the link audit reported existing pages with multibyte slugs as broken links, because it looked for a decoded name while the file is written with a percent-encoded name. The audit now matches the encoded form.
• Fixed: url() references inside external CSS were copied verbatim, so theme fonts/images went uncopied and uploads-absolute paths (url("/wp-content/uploads/…")) leaked into delivered files. CSS url() is now resolved, flattened (theme -> assets/, uploads -> media/), its targets copied, and the reference rewritten relative to the stylesheet.

0.9.17

• Added the distan_dispatch action hook and an optional manual "デプロイ" (dispatch) button on the generate screen. After reviewing the generated output, pressing the button fires distan_dispatch so a project can promote the reviewed build (git push, rsync, a build webhook). Distan stores no approval state — only the time of the last dispatch, shown on screen. The button is off by default; enable it in settings.

0.9.16

• Added the distan_after_generate action hook, fired when a generation run completes, for wiring up automatic deployment (git push, rsync, build webhooks, etc.).

0.9.15

• Redesigned the admin screen ("Distan Dispatch"): a packing-slip worksheet look with monospace figures for counts and file paths, a single stamp-green accent, and improved contrast.

0.9.14

• Added the distan_url_replacements filter for custom production URL replacements (applied across the whole output, including JSON-LD).
• Added an optional Markdown export (content.md) that combines every page's main content into one file for AI tools such as Gemini Notebook (formerly NotebookLM). URLs are rewritten to the production site URL; an optional content.local.md keeps development URLs.

0.9.13

• Initial public release.