Static export

pad export renders every page of an application and writes the result as plain files - a copy for any static host, no PHP needed to serve it:

$ pad export demo out/
6 pages and 1 assets exported to out/

$ ls out/
clock.html  contact.html  counter.html  guestbook.html  index.html  style.css  todo.html

What it does

• Pages - every page the suites walk, rendered as the web gets it: index.html, clock.html, and orders/list.html for a page in a subdirectory.
• Links - ?clock, /demo/?clock and the absolute form become clock.html, relative to the page they stand in; a link to a file of the application, style.css, becomes the path to its copy, so a page one directory down still finds it. Links that leave the application are kept as they are.
• Assets - what www/<app>/ holds beside the entry point - stylesheets, scripts, images, data files - less the .php files and the _ names.

What a static copy cannot do

A page renders once, as a plain GET: a form posts to nowhere, a link with values after the page name lands on the page as it renders without them, and a page that fails or only redirects is reported and left out. The debug toolbar and live reload, which only a developer's own requests get, never end up in the copy.