Encore Website self-updates

The Airtable-powered site engine behind Encore band and artist websites, by Drift Creative Systems. Clients edit their content in Airtable and press Publish; their WordPress site updates.

The engine is generic: Encore is a map file (maps/encore.php) plus the Encore theme.

Formerly Drift Website. Renamed in 2.0.0. Sites updating from 1.x keep working with no manual steps: they keep the drift-website/ folder, settings and synced content move to the new names automatically, and every 1.x name (functions, constants, the drift/v1 webhook, ?drift_publish= links) still works until 3.0. See "Upgrading from Drift Website 1.x" below.

• Requires: WordPress 6.2+, PHP 8.0+, OpenSSL. ACF Pro is needed for the Setup Wizard's modules.
• Repo: https://github.com/drift-creative-systems/encore-website
• Self-updates from GitHub releases (bundled Plugin Update Checker, checked every 6 hours).
• Pairs with its product theme. A map can name its theme ('theme' key). For Encore that's the Encore theme: until it's active, Encore Website shows an Install & activate notice and the Setup Wizard is off. The theme in turn shows a holding page until this plugin is active. encore-bundle.zip on each theme release contains both.

How it works

1. Each client has their own Airtable base, duplicated from the product's template base (docs/ENCORE-AIRTABLE-BASE.md).
2. Encore Website → Connection holds the base ID, an encrypted token and the product.
3. The client ticks Publish in Airtable. The automation (docs/airtable-publish-automation.js) stamps the time and POSTs to /wp-json/encore/v1/publish.
4. The site queues a background sync. Every table in the map is read (about 1 API call each) and written into normal WordPress posts, meta, terms, media and one settings option. Templates read WordPress data and never call Airtable.
5. A daily safety check reads one field and re-syncs only if a publish was missed.

Admin

Encore Website (agency users only, once one exists) has these tabs:

• Connection: credentials, product, webhook URL and secret, and a schema check against the map.
• Sync: last run, API usage this month against the budget, Sync now / Full resync, and the activity log.
• Content: which table goes where, and the current site settings.
• White Label: admin bar, footer, login screen, and which menus clients see.
• Setup Wizard: creates the product's pages with modules pre-filled and builds the Main Menu.

The admin bar also has Sync from Airtable for editors.

Theme API

encore_website_setting( 'name' );                       // synced site setting
encore_website_setting_image( 'logo', 'medium' );       // <img> for an image setting
encore_website_linked_posts( get_the_ID(), 'tracks' );  // linked records, Airtable order
encore_website_form_hidden_fields( 'enquiry' );         // inside a form posting to admin-ajax.php
encore_website_last_synced();

Synced post meta is plain WordPress meta (get_post_meta( $id, 'gig_date', true )), so ACF's get_field() works on it too.

wp-config.php options

define( 'ENCORE_WEBSITE_AIRTABLE_BASE', 'appXXXXXXXXXXXXXX' );  // overrides the screen
define( 'ENCORE_WEBSITE_AIRTABLE_TOKEN', 'pat…' );               // overrides the screen
define( 'ENCORE_WEBSITE_KEY', 'long-random-string' );            // encryption key (defaults to WP salts)
define( 'ENCORE_WEBSITE_GITHUB_TOKEN', 'github_pat_…' );         // only if the repo is private

Releasing

1. Bump Version: and ENCORE_WEBSITE_VERSION in encore-website.php, and add a CHANGELOG.md entry.
2. Commit and push to main.
3. Build the zip: python tools/build-zip.py writes dist/encore-website.zip with an encore-website/ top folder, lib/ included and .git, tests/, tools/, dist/, .gitignore and CLAUDE.md left out.
4. Create a GitHub release tagged vX.Y.Z with that zip attached. Sites see it in Dashboard → Updates within 6 hours, or straight away with "Check again" on the Plugins screen. The zip must be attached: release-assets mode is on, so plain source archives are ignored.

Upgrading from Drift Website 1.x

Automatic on the first page load after the update:

• drift-website/drift-website.php (a header-less loader) switches the active plugin entry to encore-website.php in the same folder.
• Encore_Website_Migrate renames the stored options, post meta (_drift_airtable_id and friends) and user meta, re-encrypts the saved token and publish secret, and swaps the cron hooks. It runs once and never overwrites data already under a new name.

Worth doing per client, when convenient:

• Change the Airtable Publish automation's webhook to /wp-json/encore/v1/publish and its header to X-Encore-Secret (the old URL and header keep working).
• Rename DRIFT_WEBSITE_* constants in wp-config.php to ENCORE_WEBSITE_* (the old ones keep working).
• Update the Encore theme to 1.3.0+, which calls the new encore_website_* functions.

Docs

Licence

Split licence, © Drift Creative Systems:

• PHP files: GPL-2.0-or-later (GPL-2.0.txt), because they run inside WordPress.
• Everything else (CSS, JavaScript, media, docs, the Airtable template and its scripts): proprietary, all rights reserved. They can't be copied, modified, redistributed or used in a competing product without written permission.
• lib/plugin-update-checker/: MIT, by its author.
• Names: "Encore Website" and "Encore" are reserved. Modified versions can't be distributed under them.

The full terms are in LICENSE.