next-export

DEPRECATED next.js now supports this natively as of v3.0.0.

Export next.js sites to be served statically. By default this outputs to a sites directory in the root of your project. Huge thank you to @matthewmueller for getting the initial PR going for this functionality (in: #1576)!

NOTE: This is only tested and ensured to work with next 2.3.1 +

Getting Started

Install it

npm i -D next-export

Then add the scripts to your package.json

"scripts": {
  "next-export-fix": "next-export-fix",
  "next-export": "next-export"
}

And run it

npm run next-export-fix && npm run next-export

assetPrefix option

The assetPrefix option in next.config.js can be used to serve pages on github pages (example: http://tscanlin.github.io/tocbot/)

This allows you to serve multiple static next.js apps on a single domain.

Static sites with markdown

For static sites with markdown I'd recommend you check out one of my other projects to convert a directory or markdown files to a mirrored directory of json processmd.

What does 'next-export-fix' do?

It modifies some bits of next/dist/lib/page-loader.js

Specifically it changes the functions normalizeRoute and registerPage. These changes are necessary to make index / root paths work.

Normally when next.js is used server side it serves js back from paths ending in /. This isn't possible with static sites so we do some mapping to keep the same / path but actually fetch and index file instead. See below for the annotated code changes.

It can be run multiple times and only makes the changes once. I play to open a PR to try and get these changes into next.

normalizeRoute

before:

normalizeRoute (route) {
  if (route[0] !== '/') {
    throw new Error('Route name should start with a "/"')
  }
  route = route.replace(/index$/, '')

  if (route === '/') return route
  return route.replace(/\/$/, '')
}

after:

normalizeRoute (route) {
  if (route[0] !== '/') {
    throw new Error('Route name should start with a "/"')
  }
  // Remove assetPrefix from route.
  route = route.split(this.assetPrefix).join('')
  // Make sure it's at least a slash incase the assetPrefix makes it an empty string (for root url).
  if (!route) { route = '/' }
  // Add index to the end of the route if it ends w/ '/'
  if (route[route.length - 1] === '/') return route + 'index'
  return route.replace(/\/$/, '')
}

registerPage

before:

const register = () => {
  const { error, page } = regFn()
  this.pageCache[route] = { error, page }
  this.registerEvents.emit(route, { error, page })
}

after:

const register = () => {
  const { error, page } = regFn()
  this.pageCache[route] = { error, page }
  this.registerEvents.emit(route, { error, page })
  // This caches root / index routes under both `/` and `/index` keys.
  if (route[route.length - 1] === '/') {
    this.pageCache[route + 'index'] = { error: error, page: page };
    this.registerEvents.emit(route + 'index', { error: error, page: page });
  }
}