Easy Designs v2 archive

The historical PHP source is retained, but the deployed site is a frozen static export in public/. Do not publish the repository root or execute its old PHP on a public server.

Hosting

GitHub Actions validates and deploys only public/ from master to GitHub Pages. In Settings > Pages, use GitHub Actions as the source, not branch publishing: the branch option only accepts / or /docs, not /public. Pull requests validate and upload an artifact but do not deploy.

The custom domain is v2.easy-designs.net; its DNS CNAME should point to easy-designs.github.io. public/CNAME records the domain, which must also be configured in Pages settings. Enable HTTPS enforcement after GitHub issues the certificate. No PHP environment or Netlify account is required.

GitHub Pages cannot provide Netlify's HTTP redirects. The custom 404 page redirects all 21 historical PHP URLs to canonical archive pages with JavaScript, preserving queries and fragments. The initial response remains HTTP 404 rather than 301; without JavaScript, visitors receive the archive-home link. Unknown URLs remain on the 404 page. Normal archive pages work without this redirect. The existing netlify.toml and public/_redirects remain available for an optional Netlify deployment with true HTTP redirects; Pages ignores those rules.

Preservation notes

Public PHP pages were rendered in a read-only, network-isolated PHP 5.6 container with short tags enabled and UTC configured. HTML output, client-side examples, ZIP downloads, and legacy media are committed so future deployment requires no PHP environment or access to the retired server.

Server-backed Ajax/form examples are explicitly archival. The gFSS PHP demo links to the surviving client-side example. Old analytics were removed. Locally saved A List Apart and Digital Web articles retain their original external link bases instead of resolving those publishers' navigation here.

The generated common pages load the existing jsUtilities prerequisite before the footnote scripts, restoring their original intended dependency order.

The surviving repository did not contain the formSuite ZIP, working formSuite.js, custom DTD, or the advertised jsTrace 1.3 drag ZIP. Their links are explicitly marked unavailable, not replaced with incorrect versions. The original sources remain untouched outside public/ for future recovery. The former portfolio link points to the preserved Easy Designs portfolio.

Validation and maintenance

migration-manifest.json records the source commit and PHP route map. GitHub Actions checks the artifact boundary and disallows PHP/SQL/source configuration and ed-cdn.com dependencies in the public artifact.

python3 -m http.server 8080 --directory public

The local server does not serve the custom 404 automatically or interpret _redirects; test historical PHP URLs on Pages. Keep a private backup and the previous origin until live DNS, TLS, content, and media checks are complete.