I think http://manual.b2evolution.net/Directory_and_file_permissions#Other will help. Specially the "Other" section, though I've never actually generated a static page so it's just an idea.

Thanks EdB, that's a good starting point. If I can at least create the things I guess I'll work out what to do with them somehow. And if I do, yes, I'll put it in the docs.

Static pages are pretty much for when you get slash-dotted or something similar. TONS of traffic that is crushing your server, so instead of dynamically generating all those pages the server gets a bit of a break by only dishing out a static version of the main page.

At least this is what I understand it to be all about.

Ah, then possibly I'm barking up the wrong tree. I'll have a long wait before /. comes a-knocking on my door, so I'm not too worried about that. Thanks for clarifying.

I'll take a step back. What I'm actually after is making some pages which hold non-blog content ([url=http://naturenet.net/blogs/eating.html]like this[/url] which was built entirely by hand alongside an existing 1.8 blog), possibly including php and js elements, but displayed with the normal, generated blog sidebar and headers which the rest of the blog has.

Obviously I could build them by hand again, but that would then require a tedious rewrite of every such page every time I change the layout of the blog, and makes dynamic things (like recent comments lists) tricky. I had the idea that 2.x could do this without such drudgery. Can it?

230RC1 is pretty durned good, and it has pretty much the ability to do what you want. What you do is write your "page" as if it was going to be a blog post, then in the "type" drop-down box you select 'page'. That keeps it out of the normal flow of the blog and puts it into your sidebar (or header or footer) as long as you put the "page list" widget in that container.

You can also use the new skinning method to "treat" it differently than a multipage post or a single page post. For example evopress has no sidebar on a single page post, but you could easily put the sidebar ON a "single page" page ... er ... post. Or maybe you don't want a comment form on your "page posts" so you take it out - but leave it on regular "post posts".

It's kinda cool.

You can also easily generate a "disp=myspecialpage" easily.
example: http://wow-factor.com/index.php?disp=feed
or http://wow-factor.com/index.php?disp=about

Now I'm cookin'. Thanks chaps for your input. That really helps and it's appreciated.

FWIW despite the pain of the transition I also think that 2.3.0 is the dog's too, well worth the trouble, and I'm looking forward to migrating all my blogs onto it.

John is there a how-to for disp=something for the v2.* world?

Yep, I'll write one up in the appropriate forum..

Cheers

This forum thread Edb
http://forums.b2evolution.net/viewtopic.php?t=14046