Export your PHP based prototype to HTML

PHP is quite handy for creating local interface prototypes and for easier template management with regular backs and forths that are a part of every project. Having your prototype built with a programming language allows you to quickly make changes on multiple templates all at once.

When the time comes to deliver the prototype, it’s best if you can convert it to a pure HTML form, especially if the backend development team works with a different programming language… You can do that with a handy command line tool wget. It can mirror any website, public or local — and tidy it nicely in your local folder. The command is actually quite simple:

wget -m -k -p http://www.myprototype.dev/

The only thing that you have to do manually is to copy CSS images folder. At the time of this writing, wget still couldn’t read CSS files nor get paths to CSS background images.

Some other uses can be found in Mastering wget.