Generate: Run and Actions

Videos are not designed to be a substitute for instructions. Please refer to the detailed Documentation below.

Once you have defined your Group’s content, the Groups Table provides an overview of your Content Groups, as well as specific Actions that can be run to test, generate, manage generation and delete generated content:

Page Generator Pro: Generate: Run and Actions: Table

Status Column

Don’t see the Status Column? It’s new to Page Generator Pro 1.9.9+. Older versions will have these actions (excluding status) below the Title of the Group in the table.

The Status column displays either:

Actions that can be performed on the Group, such as:
- Testing Content Generation,
- Generating Content via Browser,
- Generating Content via Server
The current status of an action that is being performed, such as content generation.

These actions are also available when editing a Content Group:
Page Generator Pro: Generate: Content: Actions

Test

It’s always recommended that you do this before generating all of the content.

The Test method generates a single, draft Page, Post or Custom Post Type, with verbose error output if elements fail (for example, a shortcode).

When clicking this action, a message is displayed on screen confirming you want to generate a Test Page:
Page Generator Pro: Generate: Run: Confirm Test

Once confirmed, an on screen notification will confirm whether the Test succeeded, with a link to the draft Page / Post / Custom Post Type:
Page Generator Pro: Generate: Test Notification

Click the preview link to view the test content, where you can confirm correct working functionality, and make changes to your Group as necessary.

If error(s) occurred with the test, they will be displayed on the content. For example, if a Wikipedia shortcode results in no content being found, you might see the following error:
Page Generator Pro: Generate: Test: Shortcode Error

Generate Methods

Three Generate methods are provided.

Generate via CRON was renamed to Generate via Server in Page Generator Pro 2.3.9 and higher.

Method	Displays Log / Progress	Active Internet Connection Required	Keep Browser Window/Tab Open
Browser	Yes	Yes Your computer must remain connected to the internet, so that the generation process in the browser can communicate with the Plugin for each Page that is Generated	Yes Your browser window/tab must remain open for the generation process in the browser to run
Server	No	No	No
WP-CLI	Yes	No	No The WP-CLI process must remain open and running, if manually invoked through SSH.

When any of these are run, the Content Group is locked and editing is prevented. This is by design, to ensure that content is not edited part way through the generation routine. Should you wish to make a change to the Content Group, refer to the Cancel Generation section below, which unlocks the Group, making it available for editing.

Generate via Browser

To generate content, and view its progress, click the Generate via Browser action. A message is displayed on screen confirming you want to generate Pages:
Page Generator Pro: Generate: Run: Confirm Browser

Once confirmed, a screen will display showing the progress as each Page is generated, along with the time it took and the server memory usage:
Page Generator Pro: Tutorial: Counties: Generate Log

It’s important not to navigate away from this screen until generation is complete. Navigating away will result in incomplete content generation. To generate content in the background, consider using the Generate via Server method below.

Generate via Server

The Generate via Server action asynchronously generates content by using WordPress’ CRON system. This means that you do not need to keep your browser screen open, as the generation processes is triggered and monitored on the server side by WordPress’ CRON system.

This does not schedule a task to generate content hourly, daily, weekly etc. It performs as if you clicked the Generate via Browser button, and will generate content once. Its sole purpose is to offload generation from the browser to the server as a one time process, and means you don’t need to keep your web browser window / tab open or maintain an active internet connection.

To generate content based on the Group, click the Generate via Server action. A message is displayed on screen confirming you want to generate Pages:
Page Generator Pro: Generate: Run: Confirm CRON

This process does not begin immediately; it can take a few minutes before starting.

Need to confirm if WordPress is running the CRON task? Install the Crontrol Plugin, Generate via CRON and check for the page_generator_pro_generate_cron task.

Generate via WP-CLI

If your server / web host provides WP-CLI, you can Test and Generate Content through WP-CLI.

Refer to the separate Documentation covering how to use WP-CLI.

Understanding the Output Log

When generating via the web browser or WP-CLI, verbose logging is output for each generated item:
Page Generator Pro: Generate: Run: Logging

Depending on the Overwrite setting used on a Content Group, the first line of each log entry will vary:

Message	Description	Overwrite Setting that may produce this Message
Created [Permalink]	A new Page has been created at the given Permalink.	(any)
Created, as [Post Type] with Permalink has not yet been generated by this Group [Permalink]	A new Page has been created, as no existing Page generated by this Group was found for the given Permalink.	Yes, if existing Page generated by this Group Yes, if existing Page generated by this Group, preserving original Publish date
Updated, as [Post Type] with Permalink already generated by this Group [Permalink]	An existing Page has been updated, as an existing Page generated by this Group was found for the given Permalink.	Yes, if existing Page generated by this Group Yes, if existing Page generated by this Group, preserving original Publish date
Created, as [Post Type] with Permalink does not exist in WordPress [Permalink]	A new Page has been created, as no existing Page was found for the given Permalink.	Yes, if existing Page exists Yes, if existing Page exists, preserving original Publish date
Updated, as [Post Type] with Permalink already exists in WordPress [Permalink]	An existing Page has been updated, as an existing Page was found for the given Permalink.	Yes, if existing Page exists Yes, if existing Page exists, preserving original Publish date
Skipped, as [Post Type] with Permalink already generated by this Group [Permalink]	Generation of this Page has been skipped, as an existing Page generated by this Group was found for the given Permalink.	No, skip if existing Page generated by this Group
Updated, as [Post Type] with Permalink already exists in WordPress [Permalink]	Generation of this Page has been skipped, as an existing Page was found for the given Permalink.	No, skip if existing Page exists

Cancel Generation

Once Generation has started, it can be stopped in one of two ways:

Generate via CRON: In the Groups Table, click the Cancel action:
Generate: Either:
1. Click the Stop Generation button on the Generate screen:
2. In the Groups Table, click the Cancel action:

This will not delete any existing Generated Content. To do this, refer to the rest of the Documentation below.

Generated Items

The Generated Items column displays the number of Posts / Pages / CPT’s generated by each Group.

Where content has been generated, two actions are available:

Trash Generated Content

This allows you to trash all existing Page(s) that were generated by this Group.

Delete Generated Content

This allows you to permanently delete all existing Page(s) that were generated by this Group. This is useful if you made an error, and need to replace your existing Pages with revised content.